


Rebel

by HGRomance



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amish Country, Dirty Talk, Drama, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Identity Issues, Marriage, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-18 18:23:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HGRomance/pseuds/HGRomance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta is a bad boy. Katniss is a good girl. Neither are interested in changing. But when Peeta's sent to work on the Everdeens' Amish farm during the Autumn harvest, two very different worlds—and hearts—collide. Modern AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on FF. net. Thanks to annarosen for prompting an Amish theme, DustWriter for beta-reading, and Ro Nordmann for creating yet another lovely banner.
> 
> Please note: Although Peeta's a bad boy, I've given hints through his backstory that he's also the hero we all love. I truly hope I've done him justice.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy. It belongs to Suzanne Collins. I merely want to spend more time with her characters.

__

REBEL

_Bad Boy_

My brother interrupts us before I can get her panties off. He throws open the door to my room and barges right in, unsurprised by the half-naked blond stretched out on top of me, even though he recognizes her and must have concluded that I'm playing with fire. Again.

"Get up shithead," Rye says, kicking my bare leg.

I rise off the mattress, taking my sweet time because it pisses him off. The girl covering me whines in protest from having to change positions, but she compensates by straddling my waist and kissing my jaw line—for some reason, girls find my jaw irresistible—while dragging her blood-painted fingernails through my hair. She mumbles for me to get rid of Rye.

For the moment, I regard her split thighs impassively. Rye's annoying, but he's my brother. He trumps sex. He trumps most things because he's the only one in this world I'm sure I love. Will ever love.

The nauseating froth of retro disco—who the fuck chose that?—from the party downstairs bubbles through the cracks in the door. I can't remember who I invited, but it sounds like more people have shown up. I wonder vaguely if we've run out of beer and that's why Rye is intruding on my play time.

He both loves and hates when Mom goes out of town. Loves it because she's Mom, and we want her away from us as much as possible. But he hates the parties I throw, mostly because I abandon them halfway through. On the other hand, he doesn't complain about the surplus of breasts that turn out. It's an easy way to pacify him.

I detect a note of bitterness when he announces, "Your bitch is waiting downstairs."

Already? Finnick wasn't supposed to show up for another hour.

I grunt. "Tell him I need five—"

"I'm not your secretary, you shameless punk."

Godammit, Rye.

Rye sticks up his nose and crosses his arms, executing that righteous stance he always uses with me. "Especially not when it comes to you and that hooligan you call a friend."

It's pointless to remind him that I instigate most of our outings, not Finnick.

Rye's furry brows draw together. "I don't suppose I've got a flaming chance of talking you out of whatever it is you're about to do."

I care what he thinks. I do. I just don't listen.

Rye knows when to back off. He's not my warden. Shit, if I wanted one, I'd go back to juvie. My brother knows I need to do my own thing. He knows I'll go crazy if I don't. Especially tonight.

"It's nothing bad," I drawl.

"We define _bad_ differently, Peeta."

He's gone and used my name. He really doesn't want me to go.

I grind my teeth. "Trust me—"

Boogers practically rocket from his nose, he laughs so hard at this.

The girl… _Glimmer_. Her name is Glimmer. Christ. What kind of rogue am I if I can't remember a name like that? She's squirming and mewling on my lap, getting impatient. She grazes her fingers over the dandelion tattoo on my right shoulder blade.

"In a minute," I tell her, absently smoothing her hair to calm her down.

"Trust you," Rye echoes. "The day you do something legal is the day I'll trust you."

He lost me at _legal_. I roll my eyes, done with the conversation, and run my mouth across Glimmer's throat.

"Whatever," Rye says. "Just get going. Finnick's lack of charm is stinking up the front yard by the second. Thanks for leaving me to deal with the party." He stomps off, so damn sensitive.

"Gotta go, precious." I disentangle Glimmer from my body and stand, reaching for my jeans and t-shirt.

Glimmer pouts, but she's pleased with the endearment. She gets up and stretches like a feline. She looks fantastic in my plaid button down and nothing else. Even more fantastic than she had an hour ago, when she kept gasping, _I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here…Oh, Peeta…I shouldn't…What are you...Oh, God…Don't stop..._

For someone who claimed to still be getting over her last boyfriend, she'd gone from virginal to feral in sixty seconds. I'm used to quick seductions, but this was a record. I'd planned to take her for victory lap until Rye had entered the picture.

She shimmies into her denim skirt, but I stop her when she begins to switch my flannel for her tank top. "Keep the shirt on," I purr, tracing the seam of her lips. "I want people to know what I've done to you. I want to think of my clothes grazing your breasts, like I'm still holding them."

Sighing she tries to nip at the intricate silver ring on my finger, but I curl the finger back at the last moment. In response, she goes for the second tattoo on the inside of my wrist, brushing the dark letters inked into my skin with the pink peak of her tongue. Instead of enjoying it, the sensation makes me feel empty. I can't say why, but the zeal after sex never lasts. I wiggle my fingers as if that will shake off the feeling and fix the problem, aware that it won't.

Glimmer asks when she'll see me again. I don't have an answer. I'd made myself clear from the beginning, and everyone knows how I operate, and every girl is fine with it. But they still ask me this afterward.

I used to be different, softer, a doormat. Not anymore. I don't like being controlled.

Now that we've finished, I close myself off. I realize our time together hasn't helped push what day it is from my mind. The memory is still there. I need to get out of here before I throw something or hurt her feelings.

On my way out of the house, I weave through people who slap me on the back and slur things I don't hear. The house smells like an open liquor cabinet. Unable to stand the music, I detour over to the source of the horrible disco orgy and change the playlist, eliciting a fervor of complaints that I devotedly ignore.

Two girls make out by the front door, and I stop to admire them. The pair of luscious figures melt into one another like candle wax. One of them, a redhead, grins saucily at me. I remember her foxy moans very well. She curls a finger in my direction, beckoning me to tear through the fault line of their private session and insert myself between their heated caresses. I wink at her, then turn away and leave.

"Don't go." Rye's voice startles me as I'm grabbing my keys. He's staring at me intently. "I have a bad feeling."

Jesus. What channels has he been watching?

"Are you turning superstitious on me?" I joke.

"I'm serious, Peeta. I'll kick your ass if I have to. I'll break your freaking leg."

I study him. "Not tonight, Rye. Come on."

The fact that I'm reduced to pleading is annoying and a waste of time. I'll go with or without his permission. Let him try and kick my ass. He won't win.

We stare at each other, swapping the same memories of our father.

_Not tonight._

Rye nods. "Then let me go with you."

I chuckle, not taking him seriously, and head out.

Finnick is leaning against his vintage Mustang, blowing smoke rings into the air. His face cracks into a grin when he sees me, and he tosses the last bit of his cigarette. "About time, baby."

He takes my chin and leans forward, but I swing my mouth away from his. "Knock it off," I say.

Finnick has no gender preference. He knows I only go for girls, but that doesn't stop him from trying. Rye can't understand why this doesn't make me uncomfortable. It just doesn't. It's that simple. I'm not going to over-analyze it.

"You smell like you fucked someone nice and slow," Finnick declares.

It was nice. But not slow.

"Bet I can guess." He drops into the passenger seat while I take the wheel. He flattens his palm over my thigh and squeezes. "That Glimmer girl. You know, Cato may have dumped her, but he's still gonna want your rebellious balls on a platter."

Smirking, I slap his hand away. I'm not worried about Cato. I never worry about what other guys think. Either I have them pinned quickly or the pounding they give me doesn't hurt. I'm too numb to feel it because I'm used to it at home.

I start the engine. My brother dives into the backseat. I turn the engine back off and twist around. "What the fuck, Rye?"

Finnick acts like Rye isn't there. "Why is your puny brother soiling the back of my stallion?"

Rye isn't puny. He's taller than me—most assholes are—but he's not as broad.

"I want to see what it is you're doing," Rye says. "I want to see what makes this more worth it than the other crap you've gotten in trouble for."

He's referring to the fights and motorcycle races out on the bridge. I wish he would get over that stuff.

"I want to understand," he says.

"Ugh," Finnick groans, lighting a second cigarette. "God, your brother's a pussy."

"Hey," I warn him. "Don't."

They fight over me on a regular basis, but no one insults either of my brothers and gets away with it. Finnick leans back, shaking his head.

Seriously, though, I've got to get Rye out of the Mustang. I go for the jugular, hoping to spook him. "Mom will beat you if she finds out."

"You little shit. Since when does she need a reason? You think I can't handle myself because I'm not the one who gets incarcerated and then gets tattoos to celebrate the end of my probation?"

Finnick checks his watch while I debate Rye's request. He might want to understand how I entertain myself, divert myself from the crap that goes on in our family, or he might want to get away from the house, too. This night doesn't affect just me.

"Buckle your seatbelt," I say.

"Wait," Rye says, realizing something. "The party. Shouldn't we tell everyone to leave first?"

I pluck Finnick's cigarette from his mouth, take a drag, and tilt my head back to blow smoke against the ceiling. I pretend to give Rye's question serious thought. "No," I clip.

Because really, I could give a rat's ass if they ransack the place. I crank up the stereo, the spiky sound of a guitar gnarling through the car, backed up by the stomping pulse of a drum. I veer out of the driveway. My brother asks me to turn the music down, so I make it louder.

kpkpkpkpkp

Things play out quickly. We park in a shadowed corner beneath the bridge, unload cans of spray paint and a ladder, and rush over to the wall that I'd chosen days ago. The breeze rustles my clothes. It's almost fall, and like a fool, I forgot to bring a sweater.

Rye tosses his keys onto the pavement in frustration. "Graffiti? Are you kidding me? Can you get any more cliché?"

I tune out his bullshit and stare at the wall, a face forming in my mind. Without pulling my eyes away, I reach out for a can, which Finnick shakes and hands over.

"It's art," he defends on my behalf.

This is what neither of them gets. It isn't art. It's a way to get images out of my head before they torment me. For months now, I've been doing a series of faces around the city, faces I've seen and can't forget. Some of them I've only met in my dreams, frozen there until I let them go.

I've been inching my way up to doing my father's face. Haven't gotten there yet.

It would be nice not to have to use spray paint. It bores me and yes, it's cliché. Its strength is that it's fast. Until I get more confident transporting paint that I can use with a brush, I'll have to deal.

I ignore the hate going on between Finnick and Rye. The hiss of the can hypnotizes me. I draw an oval head, a slender neck. I spiral into another dimension, one encompassed by a plump, dissatisfied mouth. A braid appears unbidden, so stiff and unyielding that it gets on my nerves.

Narrowed eyes that remind me of a hailstorm. Hard, judgmental, resilient. They pelt my chest.

The more details I render, the more confused I get, the more it dawns on me. I don't recognize this face. I've never seen her before.

And then the strangest, craziest part of all materializes. I walk backwards and scan the face with disgust. Not because she's disgusting, but because she's…

 _A good girl_.

My brother and Finnick go quiet. I don't blame them. This shit is not art. This is a television show having to do with prairies and little houses.

"Dude," Finnick observes. "That's a chick who's never had her brains screwed out."

He's right. This girl may have known good times but not wild ones. It would be fun to loosen her up.

"She's hot, but is your dick getting soft?" Finnick goes on. "This is a whole new low of kinky, Peeta. What's with that white cap thing on her head?"

I've fucked up the wall. On this night, of all nights. With my brother here.

I register the flashing red lights and squealing siren too late. Someone must have seen us painting and called the police. Finnick and Rye panic, snatching the cans and ladder and jetting to the Mustang. Finnick has taken the wheel, so I barrel into the passenger seat. The squealing gets louder, nearly trampling over the howl of fear that Rye belts out. He's gaping at the pavement under the bridge. My eyes follow his and zoom in on the keys he left behind.

Fuck. The three of us stare, willing them to disappear, aware that none of us will reach them in time without getting caught. My thoughts surge into overdrive. Rye's fingerprints. Rye detained without question because he's a Mellark, because he's related to me. Rye confessing to protect me. Rye getting his head ripped open by our bitch of a mother—if she feels like bailing him out.

I jump out of the car.

"Peeta, no!" Rye pleads. "You can't. If you get caught again—"

I slap the dashboard. "Go."

"Peeta—"

"Fuck. Off," I growl and then haul ass. Maybe I can grab the keys and hide somewhere.

I hear the screech of the Mustang's tires, see the rear lights disappear around the corner. I swipe the keys off the ground and plow across the street, reaching the curb at the same time someone knocks me to the ground and wrestles my arms behind my back.

The cold weight of handcuffs bite into my wrist. I'm lifted off the ground and spun around. Rotating red bulbs blind me momentarily. This, all of this, is because I'd been preoccupied with an artistic failure and the face of an unknown girl. I blame that face.

"Well, well," a greasy voice says. "Peeta Mellark. The prodigal son strikes again."

Great. It figures this pig would be on duty. He thinks he's tough because of the uniform, but whenever he talks his beak flaps, and that's all I can concentrate on because it makes him look like Pac-Man.

The bastard hates me. I'm in deep shit for sure. Might as well fuck with him and hint at something he doesn't know.

"Cray." Lifting my head to the side, I level the officer with a cocky grin. "How's your wife?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This story has a fictional setting, simply referred to as the "city" and the "country." In order to create an imagined Amish Order and lessen the risk of factual errors. If that's alright with you guys, enjoy!
> 
> And: There is a culture clash, but it's not about Katniss questioning her faith. It focuses mainly on her struggle for individuality and understanding her heart. At its core, this is a love story.

__

  
_Good Girl_

We chase the lightning bugs in the fields after dark. The tiny globes of yellow light blink, making my sister squeal as she skips around with a glass jar. We're in the heart of a firework. I feel silly for thinking nonsense like this, but I use the excuse that it's not a typical evening. Tonight, Prim and I are getting along. She's dancing, running, twirling. I muster up the occasional laugh, which is the best I can do for amusement. It seems to be enough to please her.

Although the air is moist, I feel an oncoming chill as the night progresses, and I'm thinking it's time to beckon my sister back into our house. But if I do, she'll glare at me. I don't want to spoil the momentary truce between us.

My father spares me the chore by calling us to dinner. Inside, he has a fire roaring in the living room, a waste of wood too early in the season, but I suppose he can't help it. It's comforting.

Settling into the kitchen, I dutifully finish the cooking without having to be asked—unlike Prim, who's lackadaisical by nature. Our father ruffles her hair and gently, but sternly, tells her to set the table. She does so with a grudge, a transgression we've been taught not to endorse. We're back to square one, I see.

_She's just like our mother._

I wince. I sound seventy instead of seventeen. More importantly, the unpardonable thought insults my mother's memory, even after so many years, certainly enough time forgive her waspish moods and intolerance of us. She was trampled by a nervous horse and died a few hours later. I was ten. Prim was six.

Because of this, we're a tiny family by Amish standards. During her short life, our mother had two miscarriages. I once overheard my parents whispering in their room about how difficult conceiving had always been for them. I think this secretly relieved our mother. She was never fond of children.

Prim eats way too fast for us to have an easy supper. I imagine her choking, though it does no good to nag. I'm a teenager, not a parent. That's exactly what she'd say anyway while stuffing more glazed carrots down her porcelain throat.

"Calm yourself, young lady." Our father places his hand on hers, his patience breaching that rock-hard place inside her that I've never been close to. I wouldn't have a prayer of finding even with a map, compass, and torch to light the way.

"We show gratitude by pacing our meal," he says.

We find a decent pattern at the dining table, forks grazing, hands reaching for glasses, a humble silence taking over.

That's when we hear the knock. The tentative rhythm causes us to lift our heads.

Prim sits up straighter and sings, "Oooh, maybe it's Gale."

I shake my head at her, despite the anxiousness that surges through me at the mention of him. I tell myself this is normal. I _should_ be anxious, excited, blushing. I'm marrying him when we both turn nineteen, after all. People know we're courting, but no one knows about the engagement other than our families. As is our custom.

Personally, I'm not unhappy about the agreement. Gale is my oldest friend. I like him because he's as strong-willed as I am. My father likes him because he's loyal. Prim just likes his face. However, she thinks it's pitiful that I'm pledging myself to Gale for less than love.

Love is impractical. It's not always the answer, nor the safest choice. I've learned this by observation.

"Gale wouldn't show up when he knows we're eating," my father insists, giving me a look.

I adjust my kapp and try not to rush to the door. Seeing Gale does make me happy, although I'm going to scold him for disrupting our meal.

My intentions are sidetracked when I look through the keyhole and see a stranger idling on our porch. Disappointed, I call over my father, who answers while I stand behind him.

The young man is probably around twenty. Parked in the walkway next to our carriage, I notice an old-fashioned sports car, his mode of transportation. It's jarring to see the foreign vehicle waiting there. And inside, another figure is waiting in the driver's seat, but I can't see who it is aside from a trace of bronze hair.

The stranger rubs the back of his neck in confusion and checks the number on our house. He's not Amish, yet he's surprised that we are. Indeed, he seems especially surprised to see me. His expression is one of recognition, though that's impossible.

It takes him a second to pull his astonished gaze from my face and address my father. "Mr. Everdeen?"

"That's me. Can I help you?"

"I'm Rye Mellark. I think you know... _knew_...my father?"

I've never heard of a man by the name of Mellark. There's been no talk of him in our community. However, that doesn't stop shock and awe from slackening my father's features.

At the sound of a male voice, Prim is at my side in two seconds flat. I have to fight her from craning her head over our father's shoulder and making a fool of herself.

"Mellark," my father breathes, his tone wistful. "I'm fortunate enough to have some access to the outside world. Our pastor makes occasional excursions for church business. He brought me the news about what happened to your father last year. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Look. I don't mean to bother you."

"It's fine. Please, come in."

Rye glances at me and my sister. "Can we talk out here instead?"

My father closes the door behind him and guides the young man to the far end of the porch. Prim and I peek through the curtain. It's shameless to concern ourselves with other people's business, but we've never encountered outsiders that have some sort of connection to our family.

We can't hear everything that's said. Only light touches of conversation. The young man looks forlorn and constantly gestures with his hands while he speaks. "...my father said you helped him once...the court...lighter sentence...the condition...don't know what else to do...my little brother...out of control..."

"Who's out of control?" Prim salivates.

"We've heard enough." I skirt her from the window and thrust her onto the sofa, sensing that something big is about to happen. We'll need to be sitting when we hear it.

Prim tugs on my braid. I've told her not to do that. "Such a goodie-goodie," she says. I resent the comment, even though I know she's right. I'm the good one. I'm the boring one.

Well, I'll live. So will she.

The men stay out there for nearly an hour. Prim ceases trying to stoke my temper the minute our father returns. We obediently leap to our feet, noting the sound of the young man's car pulling away. Our father scratches his beard, which isn't good. My joints tighten. Prim begins to fidget.

"Katniss," he says to me. "I'll need you to clean up the cabin tomorrow and change the sheets."

I frown. I don't like where this is going. The cabin is a single-room dwelling that used to be a goat house, back when we still raised goats. Prim and I were children when this practice stopped, and my father then converted it into a play spot for us, which he furnished with a bed and wood stove after discovering that we'd sneaked out and fallen asleep there one night. But it hasn't been used in years.

His shoulders are hunched, eyes glinting with concern, resolution, and a pinch of determination. The latter of which means that whatever the stranger beseeched him to do, I have no chance of talking my father out of it.

I don't have to wait for an explanation.

"We're having a guest," he says.

kpkpkpkpkp

They deliver the boy to us in a patrol car. I can't help but pity him for this form of humiliation, even if he _has_ earned it. He grew up in another universe, yet he's been brought here against his will. I wonder what it says about Amish life that confinement to our farm is seen by others as a form of punishment. I don't understand it.

This boy's life proves how dangerous it is to be led astray by too much freedom. This is exactly why I've ignored _rumspringa_. Ever since I turned sixteen last year, I entered the period when I'm allowed to cross into the outer world, live like the English do before deciding whether to commit myself to the Amish church or leave for good.

In the beginning, I almost embraced it, wanting the freedom to try my hand at archery. It's an unorthodox craft for females in my Order. But the whole thing made Gale nervous. So unlike half of the kids my age, I have declined the opportunity.

Gale reminded me of the basic truth, which I rely on to steel myself. I don't need to know what's out there. The routine and the boundaries of this life anchor me. I know my place. I never have to question it.

I don't care for guests. My father says this boy has committed one too many acts of delinquency. Instead of locking him in a juvenile center once more, he's been granted release under the disciplinary condition that he works on the farm. With us. Two months of honest labor and quite service under my father's supervision.

The boy's lawyer, a man named Abernathy, argued his case and must have done a good job. The judge had eased his sentence after hearing Abernathy's proposal, which involved the story of Mr. Mellark and my father, back when they were both seventeen.

During his own rumspringa, my father got a summer job at the Mellarks' bakery in the city. Apparently, Mr. Mellark was a loose cannon but managed to turn things around through his friendship with my father. Their bond changed Mr. Mellark for the better.

He died last year of a heart attack. Enter Rye Mellark. The delinquent's older brother, who visited us two days ago to ask my father if he would take his little brother under his wing, the way he had with their father. Rye hopes that Papa can somehow rehabilitate this criminal boy. Or, if anything, give him a fair dose of backbreaking work.

A reckless boy who disrespects his elders and welcomes temptation on a regular basis. If he were Amish, he'd be popular with the kids here, the ones who think I'm too straight-laced, the ones who Prim follows around. Misbehavior during adolescence is generally tolerated in our community. Typically, I'm indifferent to how my peers act. With this outsider, his conduct is enough to make me look down on him.

Yet my straightened posture begins to unfurl when I see the police car. The vehicle rolls across the dirt road, bobbing from side to side as though aware it doesn't belong here.

I sigh and rub my lower back. It's been a tough day. "This makes no sense. Why should we have to deal with him?"

"Hush now, Kat," my father says, startled by my outburst. "Acceptance and benevolence."

I go silent. My head hangs down. Selflessness, amity, and forbearance are what I need to be exuding right now. Especially in front of my sister, who's thoroughly enjoying my discomfort.

This boy hasn't even set foot in front of me, yet I've already done something uncharacteristic because of him. I've spoken out of turn. It makes me dislike him more. In my heart, I know that I'm supposed to be accepting of him. He needs our guidance.

We situate ourselves along the walkway in front of our house. Hills of caramel-colored wheat on one side, high corn stalks on the other, carpet the property. It's early September. Autumn, my favorite season, is approaching. I treasure it mostly for the food. I should be content, but I'm not. I don't want this boy disrupting the time of year I most look forward to. I don't trust someone who breaks the rules. I don't trust people I don't know. I've grown up knowing everyone.

Prim is giddy. "I bet he's handsomer than Gale."

Does she not comprehend the shortcomings of pride? Besides, her prediction is hard to believe. We shouldn't place value on looks, but no one is handsomer than Gale. This is not a smug assertion. It is simply a fact.

Our father sets his hands over Prim's bony shoulders and gives them a diminutive shake to shush her. "It shouldn't matter to you one way or another, young lady."

The policeman steps out of the car, opens the rear door, and tugs the boy out. He's wearing jeans, a fitted black t-shirt that looks as soft and worn as an old sheet, and a couple of intricate rings on his fingers. He's smaller than I expected, but this does nothing to dilute his presence. He's still slightly taller than me, and his stride is indifferent. He must feel out of place, but he doesn't act like he cares. His stocky frame makes me instantly uncomfortable, as does the sunglasses he wears, as does his unruly blond hair. He's rumpled, as though he just got out of bed.

I can't stop staring. I pull at the ties hanging from my kapp. My heart is beginning to hurt. It's pumping too fast. Why?

The policeman escorts him up the walkway, evidently tired. There's lingering tension there, as if the boy has spent a good part of the ride antagonizing the officer.

My father shakes hands with the uniformed man, who then slaps the boy on the back. Hard. "This is Peeta."

Peeta Mellark.

The breeze kicks up, and the stalks begin to whir like mad, and the landscape is reflected in the boy's sunglasses.

The officer nudges him. "I'm not going to tell you again to take those aviators off and say a proper hello to this nice family."

Prim beams more than if she discovered a talking goat in our yard. My father gazes at Peeta Mellark with familiarity because he's seen this behavior before. Years ago.

Peeta Mellark pretends he hasn't heard the policeman. I find myself stepping backward, the action causing the boy's cleft chin to shift toward me. His head jerks for a second, but then goes still. I see my gray eyes mirrored in the shades. It's impossible to tell what he's thinking. What expression lurks behind that barrier?

I'm hungry. I have the sudden desire to bite into the nearest blooming vegetable. Chew slowly. Swallow.

The officer repeats his order to remove the "aviators." Peeta Mellark merely adjusts them, revealing black letters tattooed on the inside of his arm, beneath his wrist. I tilt my head but can't decipher the word...not that it should interest me. Personal decoration is forbidden and considered vain in our community.

Annoyed, the cop swipes the sunglasses off the boy's face. It takes effort to stifle my gasp. When I get my first look at those alarming blue eyes, I know one thing: Prim was right. He is unreal. He is unapologetically beautiful.

He is dangerous.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested, there's a fascinating excerpt on NPR's website from a book called, Rumspringa: To be or not to be Amish by Tom Shachtman. It offers some great insight into Katniss's teen life and why she responds to Peeta so swiftly and intensely.

_Good Girl_

I kick Prim under the dinner table to stop her from gawking at our father. She's dying to ask questions about the outsider, Peeta Mellark. Questions that are none of her business and wrong to preoccupy herself with. She knows better.

Once the policeman dispatched the boy, my father graciously introduced us, a moment that wrested from me every drop of steadiness I had. The boy hadn't stopped looking at me—and looking at me funny, no less. Like he recognized me, just as his brother had after showing up on our porch.

Only Peeta Mellark's reaction was harsher. His angular jaw clenched as though he resented what he saw. He spent a staggering amount of time probing my eyes for some kind of suspicious agenda. Incredibly ironic coming from him. I'd searched inside myself, wondering what I had done to earn this sort of attention, and came up blank.

Between his unkempt and deceptively golden hair, his tight but wrinkled attire, his disregard for authority, and his very blue gaze, he'd forced me to glance at my shoes. Peeta Mellark made me uncomfortable without saying a word.

Our father had escorted him to his cabin, fifty yards away in the woods. A convenient distance that won't cause too much gossip amongst our Order—many won't understand—but close enough to monitor Peeta Mellark's behavior and work progress.

Papa had been gone a long time. When he returned, a deep crease had etched itself into his forehead. The boy must have said something to trouble him. Nevertheless, my father is tolerating it out of loyalty to his old friend. I cannot quell my own curiosity over what the boy and Papa talked about, but it isn't proper to invade his ruminations.

A blush betrays my cheeks when I think of how I'd cleaned the cabin and prepared the bed Peeta Mellark will sleep in. I squeeze my spoon, about to dig into my stew, when Prim's squeaky voice halts me.

"What's Peeta eating?" she asks.

Our father sets a napkin on his lap. "He refused my offer to join us."

"But—"

"It's his choice. We show courtesy, and he either accepts or not. Something tells me he hasn't yet learned the difference between kindness and pity. Nor pride and manners. He's stained and needs to let go of his reservations before he shares a table with us. We can steer him toward salvation, but he has to take the steps."

I hadn't expected Papa to say so much in one breath. It isn't like him to confide in us to this degree, with these many words. There's melancholy in his hushed tone and pain as fresh as a drop of blood.

Prim twirls the loose tie of her kapp around her finger. "I didn't ask _who_ he's eating with. I asked _what_ he's eating."

Papa stops chewing. I glance at him, equally surprised and guilty. We've provided the boy with a grill for the fresh meat and vegetables we'll regularly deliver to him throughout his stay. We also plan to cater his non-grill meals, seeing as the cabin doesn't have a kitchen. Yet so soon we've neglected to follow through with these plans. Even if he won't sit with us, it's his first night, and he's unfed.

Peeta Mellark has burned himself into our lives and left a smoke trail in his wake, which now permeates the walls. It's a noxious scent that won't disappear soon enough.

Our father sighs. "Katniss—"

Prim huffs. "No. Not fair. It was my idea."

"Primrose, where is this unsavory sense of entitlement coming from?"

I smirk. She is thirteen and hates being called by her full surname.

"Katniss, take a bowl to Peeta," Papa instructs.

My smirk drops onto my plate so quick I can practically hear its thud. I do not want to set foot anywhere near that cabin. Most certainly not alone. I know exactly why he's asking me to go instead of doing it himself. He's concluded the boy will more likely accept food from someone his age, which confirms he has so far been uncooperative with my father.

I want Peeta Mellark out of here. There. I've been uncharitable. I embrace the feeling and give it a big hug.

"Prim should come with me," I say.

"Prim will not know how to contain herself."

My sister crosses her arms. "Of course. Katniss can do no wrong. No danger of her stepping out of line."

"And come right back," my father warns.

I cannot disobey. I wish Gale was here to walk with me. I miss him. I miss the security of him.

kpkpkpkpkp

On my way, I take solace in the crunchy sounds and grainy textures of autumn. The world smells like split squash.

The solace doesn't last as I near Peeta Mellark's lair. Getting closer, I hear the merciless squeal of rock music blasting from one end of the cabin to the other, sharp enough to peel the hide off a cow.

I'm outraged. Have the authorities allowed this boy indulgences during his probation? Does my father know about this?

Technology. Except for select things our Order permits—lighting and refrigerators and the types of tractors we use—it's another offense hailing from the kingdom of vanity. Particularly whatever apparatus is spewing that noise.

I lift my chin and pray for the fortitude to endure the next two minutes. Yes. I will endure. This will toughen me against greater challenges in the future. It will—

The door swoops open. I haven't knocked yet, but Peeta Mellark is standing there, bathed in orange firelight. My mind empties. Heat oozes down my throat and into my stomach.

He's bare-chested. He props his bent arm high up on the frame, causing a muscle to pop up like a pale summit. I've never seen an unclothed male before. Therefore, I've never felt the effects, which flutter in my chest and boil my cheeks.

He jerks his head toward the cabin and turns, indicating for me to follow him. It resurrects my moral stamina. I scowl at his naked back, which brandishes a second tattoo of a broken-up dandelion. The image ripples over his shoulder blade as he moves.

Clutching the container of stew I've brought, I loiter outside for a moment before stepping inside. I will be humble, but I will not be intimidated.

Kerosene lamps glow in the room. The wood stove roasts, providing ample heat. One of our old rocking chairs lounges by the flames, a hand-knit woolen blanket tossed over the arm. The bed is plush and covered in a faded patchwork quilt. I must confess, I'm a bit envious of how cozy it is in here, though I don't envy the seclusion.

Peeta Mellark shuts off the music coming from a small speaker thing—evidently battery-powered—on the floor. Its size surprises me considering how monstrous the noise level had been. As he bends over, his tight jeans span his backside.

I lose my grip on the container but catch it before stew splatters onto the floor. My yelp alerts him. He rises, his attention sliding from my gaping face to the dish in my hands. Those eyes disturb me.

"What do you want?" he asks.

The timing is inconvenient as I chose that precise moment to glance at his torso. He's not big, but he's robust. Dark blond hair trickles down into his waistband.

I hold out the stew. He doesn't take it.

I strain my arm further. He still doesn't take it.

We watch each other, waiting to see who will give in first. To make himself clearer, he crosses his arms. He's enjoying this. He wants to break me but doesn't realize with whom he's dealing. I have years of faith and restraint on my side. He has years of deviance on his. We shall see who perseveres.

We stay like this for at least a full minute. As my arm muscles begin to tremble, it occurs to me this isn't fair. My mind is not as strong as my body...a plaguing thought. I scrunch my lips together as the stew gets heavier and heavier. My arm gives out, lapsing to my side.

Satisfied, Peeta Mellark strides past me. I place the stew on the counter and trail his movements, folding my hands neatly in front of me. I will myself not to scorn his victory. Now that I've completed my chore, I'm about to leave when I see where he's standing. What he's doing.

He's painting on the wall. A half-finished image—the profile of an unknown child—parades across the wood in thick, wet strokes. Tubes of color and a water jar reside by his feet.

Peeta Mellark, delinquency incarnate, has defaced our property. I'm shocked by his nerve, his rudeness, his talent. How dare he!

I march to the door, intending to take this up with my father.

"So what do you think?" he taunts. "Like my work?"

I stop and glower at him.

"You're desperate to say something." He drops his brush in the water jar, the red paint dissolving. "I'm all ears. Hit me with it."

His smug is easy to read. It dares me to reprimand him for his artistic crime and then tell on him, fully aware that I want to.

_Leave, Katniss. Don't humor him. It's pointless._

I fail to listen to myself. I intend to lecture him for ruining the wall, but instead I seize on the other offense, the one I have a more controlled grip on: He doesn't want to accept our food. He thinks he's better than us. His lack of appreciation for our hospitality insults my father's generosity.

"You expect us to believe you have no appetite," I say, then flatten myself up against the wall when he swaggers up to me and plants his hands on either side of my head. He leans in the way a boy might if this were an intimate moment. My heartbeat accelerates but not from fear.

"Nope." His warm breath travels across my mouth. "None at all."

If he's trying fluster me, it's working. I'm trapped in a cage of skin and sinew. I'm inflamed and disturbed, but I manage to hide my true reaction and match his stare with a coarse one of my own. Intrigued, he moves back, releasing me from the prison of his arms but also taking the warmth with him.

I straighten my dress. "You have the gall to consider yourself your own master."

"What the fuck do you care?" he challenges.

And now I'm offended. I spin on my heel, mumbling, "I don't."

"What was that?" he calls from behind. "Don't care, do you? Doesn't surprise me. You wouldn't know emotion if it fondled you in all the right places."

I clench the doorknob.

"Tell me, Amish girl. What's it like to hold yourself back? What's it like hiding under that little white headgear of yours?"

Coldness hits my scalp as I realize he's pulled the kapp off my head. I gasp, whirl around, and jump at him, making grunting sounds while he dangles the kapp in the air, too high for me to reach. My face burns. Tears scorch the backs of my lids.

"Please!" I wail.

Stunned, Peeta Mellark lets go of the kapp. I catch it and spring back, wringing it in my hands.

He raises his palms. "Hey. Sorry. I…"

I wrench the kapp back on my head. I avoid looking at him as I fight to control my brittle emotions. I wish I could rejoice in his chagrin—I've left him as speechless as he has left me. Yet I'd been wholly unprepared for his attack, for how much it disarmed me, for how much I'd overreacted.

Our kapps are symbols of submission, a way to show constant worship even when not in church. It's not a question of our physical virtue, so it's not as if he'd pulled up my skirt. I'm being far too sensitive and need to show some dignity.

"Shit…Look, I…I'm sorry," he offers. "Really. Look, you can get even with me, okay?" He backs up and spreads his arms. "Go ahead. Do whatever it is you do."

Get even? That isn't our way. But I'm confused and…and angry. So, so angry. Who is he to call me soulless? To accuse me of being dispassionate?

I grab the water jar from the floor by his feet and fling the contents at the painting on the wall, drenching it. The colors run down the surface and turn it into a melted rainbow.

My hands shoot to my mouth. I cannot believe I did that. That couldn't have been me. Katniss is self-contained. Katniss would not rage. Katniss would not retaliate. Would she?

We stare at the smeared image. The child's distorted face. I've destroyed Peeta Mellark's artwork. His _impertinent_ artwork, I remind myself.

"That…was different," he muses.

I stomp out of the cabin, needing to get away from this boy who makes me feel forbidden things, makes me behave in an erratic manner.

I go home, finish my supper, ignore Prim's interrogation about what took me so long, wash the dishes, brush my teeth, confine myself to my room, and sink to my knees.

I pray. Then I smooth over my kapp, the cloth reassuring me of what I am—a simple Amish girl. By removing it, it was like he'd stripped me of that identity, and briefly I had no idea who I was. It was like hearing a question I didn't know how to answer. And by succumbing to anger, I only hurt myself. My upbringing dictates that I mustn't blame Peeta Mellark. He's snarky, he curses, and he knows no better.

I, on the other hand, do know better. I must look inward and find fault there. I spend a long time in pious meditation, but the magnetism of those blue irises haunt me.

As does his artwork. I'm not ignorant of such things. Gale's mother knits plush quilts. Prim and I made faceless dolls when we were little. I've seen landscapes on canvas before.

The outsider's craft is different. It comes from him. In his own way, he's brought the city here, snippets of that unfamiliar life and its textures for me to see.

Portraits aren't allowed in our world. It celebrates the individual and resists humility. But quite simply, his painting was lovely. The colors on the wall, the brushstrokes. It provoked a curious part of me, roused up a strange kind of wonder. What else can he depict in so striking a likeness?

I'm truly sorry to have ruined his efforts. It had been as real as nature, without boundaries. He made reality his own by drawing that child's face, honest yet imaginative. The real and the not real swirled into one harmonious image. He has a skill, which he uses to explore and express.

I've never had that luxury, nor thought about it until tonight. I'm miles from understanding how I let myself get influenced by this boy. Thus, I must avoid him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	4. Chapter 4

_Bad Boy_

I need to stay the fuck away from her. It's like I predicted my future when I spray-painted those stiffened features and penetrating eyes. Rye told me he'd seen her when he came to the farm, but I thought he was just messing with me.

When I first got here and saw her standing on the walkway, I was glad the aviators masked my reaction. The face I'd blamed for ruining an important night turned out to be the flesh-and-blood icon of my incarceration. My thoughts stacked up in my head like weight rings.

_She's real._

_She's gorgeous._

_She's fucking Amish._

Katniss Everdeen. I could smell her judging me. I wanted so badly to pull on that stuck-up little braid. I wanted to unhinge that steel mouth, that prude body, see if she was human and capable of emotion.

That night, when she brought me dinner, I'd gotten my chance. It had been fun riling her up, even validating considering the crap I was in. My way of punishing her for metamorphosing in my head and then dropping into my reality. Teasing her had felt good.

Until I pulled off that head cloth. I didn't mean to hurt her. Seeing her hurt sucked. I didn't expect to feel like shit, or protective for that matter, like I wanted to kick my own ass.

It really got interesting when I suggested she retaliate. Any other girl would have just called me a prick (Glimmer) or pantsed me (Johanna). Instead, she went after the mural I painted on the wall—another thing I'd done to see how far I could go with these people. She attacked my art. A perceptive and clever move. Classy even.

So now I know. Katniss is capable of hitting where it hurts without fighting dirty. And she has fire in her, after all. She's more unpredictable than she realizes. Usually, people don't know how to blast me, what to go after. With her, I'm not as confident.

As I stand in the middle of a horse stall, I recap the last few days on this farm. Avoidance should be a quick fix. The problem is, it's not sticking.

I'd been stacking firewood when it started. I'm not allowed to use my iPod while working, but I sneaked it in my pocket anyway and plugged my ears once Mr. Everdeen left me to do my thing. With only a fleet of squirrels as my audience, monotony sunk its teeth into me and I began to flip the each log around like a sidewalk sign holder. I was feeling crafty, so I created an abstract sculpture out of the wood pile, making a mockery out of the family's originally lame pyramid stack.

I caught the younger daughter, Prim, watching and giggling from the window of their house. Meanwhile, her less entertained counterpart peered at me from a different window.

Katniss had zeroed in on my earbuds in disapproval, then turned her attention to the wood pile, her gray eyes dilating. I thought my sculpture must have looked like a mistake to her. Since it didn't resemble anything remotely impressionistic or realist, I doubted she recognized the mass as art. The scene sucked the stability out of her, and I fed off it, making the pile crazier and more uneven, wondering how long it would take her to march outside with a pitchfork.

But to my surprise, she didn't move. She stayed past the point where her sister left. She kept flinching, torn between closing the curtains and keeping them open. Her face was a scale equally weighted down by her chores and the cliffhanger of what I'd do next. My handiwork didn't disturb her, not in the way I thought. Sure, it made her frown. But it also made her bite her lower lip attractively.

I keep warning myself to quit it, but it's in my DNA to turn her dial. She tries to be rigid, but I'm proving just how bendable she is. I've got to stop before she claims too much of my attention. It's frustrating to think how easily she can.

Damn girl. Damn beautiful face.

"How is the work so far?"

The voice slaps me back to the present. Mr. Everdeen is watching me from the entrance to the horse stall. His question is an earnest one. How's the work? I'm shoveling pony shit. How the hell is it supposed to be going?

I shrug. "Fine."

He stares at me hopefully. I don't like it.

"The harvest time is coming up," he says. "Our fields will be mighty busy. I'll need you there."

I keep shoveling. The sound of our shoes crushing hay fills the room.

He takes off his hat, runs a hand through his hair, and then puts it back on. "Peeta. I know this is a change for you, but surely it's better than your other options."

He's wrong. Juvie is easier. People to fight and sport against. People like me. Sometimes, you make an ally or two.

The rooms in juvie also have electricity. Here, I'm in total primitive hell. I have to use oil lamps. Instead of plumbing, the cabin has a water pump outside for drinking and washing, and a basin that I can fill for shaving. The wood stove has a top surface to heat a kettle, but I don't want tea. I want a fucking beer. The grill's a perk, and the family feeds me, and I can use their bathroom, but that's it. Other than a shower, I usually end up pissing in the woods anyway.

"Over the years, I've wondered so often about your father," he begins.

I stop shoveling and lock my jaw. He tried to talk to me about this on my first night. I'd shut him up fast by reminding him that my father's dead.

I don't trust Mr. Everdeen or his family. I don't care if he shared some outdated bond with my father. It irritates me that this stranger assumes he can "cure" me just because he did it with Dad. If this man thinks I'll be just as easy, he's got another thing coming.

"My family experienced a loss, too. My wife seven years ago," he says. "We're not ignorant of your grief. And you still have your mother—"

I fling the shovel against the stall. "You don't know me, mister."

He straightens but doesn't seem surprised.

"You don't know my dad like I did," I say. "You don't know shit about us _._ Just because you spent a summer with him, it doesn't mean you know about my life, okay?"

"I was blessed to know your father."

"And guess what? I'm. Not. Him."

"Peeta—"

"No one could ever be my father. No one, not even me, can ever come close. So whatever grand plans you have for 'saving me,' forget it. You think I need your help? You think I owe you for rescuing me from the chain gang? You did this for yourself and my dad, _not_ me. You want to know what my life is like? My mother's a whack-job who likes to use her sons as punching bags. I'm separated from my brothers. I'm separated from my friends. And I'm stuck in this backwater can, up to my ass in wheat and corn.

"You want to know how my work is? Flies are buzzing and snapping everywhere like turd groupies. I've got hay splinters in places they should never be. And what I don't need is for some suspender-wearing buzz-kill like you to tell me about my father while I'm mucking up crap balls larger than my fist. Just tell me what to do around here and then leave me the fuck alone!"

A shower of dirty water splatters onto my head from the bucket Mr. Everdeen upends over me. He sets it down and wipes his hands. Hazily, I wonder what it is with this family and hurling water at things.

He steps right into my face with cool authority, forcing me to look at him. He does this without so much as laying a hand on me.

Not one hand.

Not one.

"I tolerated you the first night, young man, but I've been having a good night's sleep since then. Now, here me good." He waits a long moment. "I'm sorry I offended you."

It's not what I expect. Embittered, and taken off guard, my eyes divert to the tack wall behind him. I pretend I'm not listening.

His patient words are weapons I'm not used to fighting. "I may not know of your relationship with your father. Equally so, you don't know about my friendship with him. If you can't be grateful for this landslide of opportunity to correct your mistakes outside of a cell, then ask yourself questions only you can answer: How would your father want you treat others?"

My chest tightens. Dad used to talk about this man, always with affection. What _would_ my father want me to do?

Every word Mr. Everdeen says penetrates deep inside a place I rarely visit. I want to push him away, but I can't. The same as with his daughter, I've underestimated his power. His non-violent power.

"How would your father want you to behave?" he asks. "What would give him comfort, Peeta? What is it worth that your brother came here, humbly asking for my help? How much does his concern for you matter? Do you wish to show him ingratitude for his efforts?"

Rye. My brother. My older brother.

I've left him alone. With Mom.

"This farm may not be your choice, Peeta. But it's honest work, it feeds people, it keeps us warm and housed, and it keeps us together. You wish to be heard? Next time, I'd suggest you learn how to deliver your thoughts in an honorable, and _quiet_ , manner. The loudest men are usually the weakest." He turns and leaves me there, saying over his shoulder, "Keep shoveling."

My temper dissolves, replaced by pain. For the past year, no one has ordered me around without a slap across the face. No one has talked to me like this in...in a long time.

_Wash your hands, Peeta._

_Did you do your homework?_

_No talking back, young man._

_Knead with concentration. That's my boy._

Even at sixteen, my father still treated me like I was six. It used to embarrass me. I'd give anything for him to be alive, to embarrass me again.

My eyes follow Mr. Everdeen's exit. The moment in the stall stays with me throughout the rest of the day. I catch glimpses of this man who lost his wife and isn't afraid of me. He works on the farm slowly but efficiently. He believes respect is earned. Meanwhile, I've been a dick twice since I got here.

After unwinding in the Everdeens' shower in the late afternoon, I return to my cabin and start to draw. This man doesn't need me to wave a white flag—he's solid enough—but I bet his daughter does, even if she doesn't want to admit it. I'm familiar with this impulse, but I keep working on the sketch anyway. I don't have anything to offer except this.

I'm finished by the time she brings me dinner. As usual, she doesn't knock, and I don't hear her approach, but I do hear the plate being set on the ground. I open the door.

Katniss jumps back. She's glaring. She's blushing. She does both well. If she were any other girl, I'd make a comment. I'd flirt. I'd tease.

It's a shame she gets to me. Otherwise, I'd pursue.

I hold out the pencil sketch. She takes it without thinking, then releases a thin gasp when she sees that I've drawn her hands wringing the white head cloth between her fingers. I hope this is the right thing to do and I haven't broken some Amish rule. Can she even own art?

"How 'bout a cease-fire?" I suggest. And when she traces the image on the paper, I explain, "Payment for pulling off your handkerchief."

"Kapp."

"Huh?"

"It's a head kapp. With a _k_." Then those gray eyes soften. "There's no need to atone. I have already forgiven you, Peeta Mellark. It's our way."

An apology and forgiveness from both Everdeens in one day. I'm stumped. I'm worthless, just like Mom tells me.

Katniss and I loiter. I think we're trying to decide who will end the conversation. If you can call it a conversation at all.

She considers her words and draws them out tentatively. "You speak through art."

My eyes narrow until I understand that she's not criticizing me. She sounds like a child that's been left out of a game.

I tell her, "I speak in whatever way feels right at the time. How do _you_ speak?"

"By being useful," she replies.

That's not the whole answer. My expression says so, and she gets skeptical. "What else do I need?"

My voice hits a velvety, suggestive note. "Find out."

Her grip tightens on the drawing as she absorbs my words. The ties holding the cap on her head have loosened beneath her chin. I swipe at them and discover that she's cute when she swallows.

I murmur, "You should double knot that."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: "Autumn Tree" by Milo Green.

_Bad Boy_

The older Amish guys working on the farm keep glancing my way. Their long beards and quiet attitude freak me out. I haven't seen a moment of fury or annoyance from any of them. Don't they ever want to explode? Do they ever feel tension?

Does she?

Katniss and I continue our truce over the next weeks. We become pros at staying away from each other. Every morning and night, she set my food by the cabin door and then scrambles away, her braid bouncing, the skirt of her dress flopping around her legs.

One time, as I took the food, I saw movement in the distance, a flash of her apron disappearing behind a tree. The idea of her spying made me grin.

Time doesn't exist. I harvest corn and wheat, tie and haul bales onto a wagon, keep cleaning up the horse's stall, chop and pile wood. It's harder work than at my family's bakery, back when I willingly helped out. I think the young guys around here are expecting me to tuck my city tail between my legs, so I make sure to show them that I can hold my own. It might be a tougher grind in this place, but bread-baking is hypnotic, uncomplicated work that requires stamina, too. I can take farm labor.

In fact, it reminds me of those days with my dad, when he was the center of the business and taught his sons how to run everything. I liked it. I listened and did what was asked of me.

Then he died. Then I changed.

"What's happened to you?" Rye had asked at around the four-month anniversary of Dad's death, when my anger peaked at critical mass. "This isn't you, Peeta."

Sometimes I remember. Most times, I don't want to. I'm not that nice guy any more. Our mother is not that nice woman anymore, either. She calls me despicable and useless. Maybe I deserve what she gives me. Maybe I want it. Maybe I ask for the beatings.

Mr. Everdeen had said the loudest men are the weakest. I'd felt that statement like a dozen blows. I don't know what to make of it. Or him. Or his oldest daughter.

Today, Katniss joins us in the wheat field. Apparently, kids stop going to school here after eighth grade, so she's around all the time. She's working by herself at the moment, pressing her hands into her back and arching while bulkier bodies shift through the stalks in the background. It looks like a Millet painting.

This place is too slow and peaceful. It forces me to think of easier times, memories I don't want to remember. There's no way in hell I want to dwell there.

I run my hand through my uncombed hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her watching me. My mouth rises in a half-grin. I'm about to break our unspoken rule, but who cares? I'm bored. I'm rapidly going berserk as it is. And she's stretching her body so nicely.

Once I'm at her heels, my dark shadow tenting over hers, she tenses. I get the feeling she wants to run away, and I wonder if our first encounter in the cabin is still fully loaded in her mind.

I yank on a wheat stalk and tickle the back of her neck. She whips around, smelling like soil and soap. A teardrop of sweat slides behind her ear, and her lips are chapped. The freckles across her nose are even more prominent than usual.

"Hey," I say.

She lifts her chin and nods. So formal. What is she? A Duchess?

While we move through the field, I openly concentrate on her, and she pretends to concentrate on everything but me. It's easy to antagonize her. All I have to do is stay close.

Reaching out for the same stalk, our fingers brush. Her skin is warm despite that chronically cold scowl of hers. I have to admit, I kind of dig the scowl.

Alright, so she's not bad company.

Her fingers tremble as she pulls away and mutters, "Excuse me."

I swing my arm toward the stalks. "No, excuse me. After you. You get dibs."

She scans the area, but everyone is too busy to pay attention to what we're doing. Who gives a shit if they see us together anyway? This isn't the Vatican, and I'm not a leper or a libertine who's going wolf down her virginity in one-two-three. And it's not like our proximity will cause some kind of cross-contamination.

"Come on," I tell her, aware that she's tossing around a new thought. "Say what you want. It's just us. I dare you. Talk to the English boy."

"I was going to say, you could be a charming soul if you wanted to, Peeta Mellark."

I used to be like that with everyone. Now, I'm selective about who matters.

I beat the stalk against my hip. Her eyes linger there, watching the movement. Nothing else happens for a few thick seconds. And then I tell her, "My dad used to say I could charm the skin off a snake."

"And the habit off a nun, I imagine."

"Wow." My brows leap into my forehead. "You have a twisted imagination."

Katniss looks horrified. "I do not…that was only…"

I flick her braid with the wheat stem. "A joke?"

She narrows her eyes but manages to laugh at herself. I laugh with her. As we work, she shuffles through the field fast, and I ask where the fire is, and she slows down.

"Sorry. I get ahead of myself," she says.

"Imagine that."

"I love gathering, and I..." She bites her lip.

"Keep going," I say, wiggling my ringed fingers. "You're not done yet by a long shot."

"You will mock me."

"Why? 'Cause I'm a delinquent? Or 'cause you get made fun of all the time?"

Katniss hesitates, but I've spotted a glint of desire there. She _wants_ to talk to me. Maybe I'm the only one in this place who won't judge her because I have no limits.

"If you must know," she begins.

"Oh, there are lots of things I _must_."

"The night you gave me the drawing, I said that you speak through art."

"Art is infinite. Everyone has a match to their mood. Music. Dancing. Reading. Sex—"

She makes a hiccupping noise and then gives me a look that could flatten a monster truck. Evidently, she thinks I'm not being serious, so I let my gaze tell her otherwise.

She clears her throat. "And then you told me to find out how I speak."

That's not all I said to her. I notice now that the strings of her kapp are double-knotted. I would make a comment, something blush-worthy, but what she's saying seems to matter to her. It's like she's starved to be heard. I know what that's like.

Also, I'm stuck on the fact that she actually spent time thinking about what I said. I wonder if she thought about it in bed, in a nightgown, with her braid undone.

She admits, "When I was little I made this bow and arrow out of twigs and yarn and used to pretend I was huntress. It was the happiest I think I've ever been. The skill and concentration. The silence and patience. Archery is how I'd like to speak. Show myself to the world." Her voice has become weightless, but then it hits a sour note. "But I'm not a man."

"So what?" I ask.

"So this is the closest thing I can do to feed my family."

"Archery suits you. Do it if you want."

"We don't do whatever we want here."

Obviously, she doesn't remember who she's talking to. I'm incapable of accepting that kind of statement. "You're not a _we_ , Katniss. You're a _you_. Ever think about that?"

She's quiet for a moment. "I enjoy the harvest. It's enough."

"If you say so."

She rips out a wheat stalk. I bet she wants to hit me with it. I'd love it if she did, but I compromise instead of goad.

"I get the whole harvest thing," I say. "My dad owned a bakery. My oldest brother, Sam, runs it now. I used to work there. I like feeding people, too. Or...I did." I run my hand over the wheat. It tickles my palms. "Guess this is where it starts."

"It is," she agrees.

"But is that really enough? Is this field everything?" I challenge, getting irritated for no good reason. "Is it who _you_ are?"

My question throws her. We share a long and disturbingly sincere look.

"Katniss," a male voice calls out.

A super tall, clean-shaven guy our age strides toward us. I give him a once-over. His body is so solid, he looks bulletproof.

Christ. What do they put in the milk here?

Katniss makes a hasty introduction. "This is Peeta Mellark. And this is Gale. My…"

Tall Gale pulls her close to him and aims his frigid gaze at me. "I'm her beau."

Beau. Amish for _boyfriend_. This highly unanticipated information causes my fingers to curl. I don't know what staggers me more: that a guy has succeeded in wooing her, or that it actually bothers me.

I camouflage my reaction with amusement. "Ahhh. What's up, Boyfriend? Checking in on her?"

"Do I need to?" he questions sternly.

I have to fight from chuckling. I don't care if he's Amish—this dude's so bluntly marking his territory that it's making his girl uncomfortable. It's clear she doesn't care for flaunting their relationship. I like that about her. It means she's doesn't bullshit.

I wasn't planning on trespassing, but suddenly I'm second guessing that decision. Flirting with Katniss might do Gale's tallness some good.

I can't resist my next words. "Hell, I'm just a juvie veteran-turned-servant. I do whatever she wants, whenever she wants." I twirl the stalk between my fingers. "It's fun."

Katniss flushes. I've gone too far, too fast, but that's never stopped me before.

Tall Gale's fingers lock onto her waist. I shove my free fist into my pocket. "Don't worry, Boyfriend. I'll keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't misbehave."

From the looks of it, he's not certain if I'm kidding. Some people have zero sense of humor. He's about to respond, and I bat up for another inning when Katniss whispers something to him. He relents, smooths her hair—aww—and scrutinizes me before retreating back to his section of the field.

That's when I notice how many people have been spying on us, as if expecting our conversation to cause mutiny any second. I give them my best _What are you looking at?_ glare. They turn away.

Katniss is oblivious. "You were smug," she lectures.

"I was kidding," I correct. "Your boyfriend wasn't."

She sighs. "He's protective."

"Well, tell the wooly mammoth he needs to chill out or he'll start shedding in no time."

Wryly, she shakes her head at me. "You are terrible."

I smile. "Whatever."

We continue working, but Gale's ghost lingers, and she resumes her normal pace, racking up the distance between us. I let her go for now.

kpkpkpkpkp

That night, Mr. Everdeen gives me a second invite to dinner. I shrug. Why the hell not?

I've noticed during my excursions to use their bathroom that the place is plain, but I get a more thorough look now. Unfussy wood furniture. Straight lines. Drab colors, except for the light brimming from the fireplace. Lots of baskets.

No art. No family pictures. I remember once pouring through a photography book and reading a brief mention about the Amish not allowing themselves to be photographed. A glance around this house tells me nothing about the Everdeens.

I'm not crazy about the praying part of dinner, but it's nice the way no one feels the need to flip the table in a fit of rage here. There's laughter. There are moments of easy silence. Mr. Everdeen treats both girls like gems without showing favoritism. He listens to them but doesn't coddle. He makes sure they know they're worth something to him.

He glances at me in approval. I find myself wanting his respect, which sets me on edge since the other half of my brain knows how to define a lost cause. My mother never had any problem reminding me I'm a screw-up, but Mr. Everdeen keeps telling me the opposite, minus pity or doubt. Seriously, I don't know who to believe.

Prim throttles me with questions about the city, which Katniss tries to hush, which Prim ignores.

"Katniss is prissy," Prim declares. "She's not interested in adventure."

"Young lady, that's enough teasing," Mr. Everdeen scolds. "We have a guest."

My gaze darts over to Katniss. She eats like a conveyer belt, mechanical and steady. Though she's not fooling me. I see how her gray eyes reflect hurt.

I feel the inexplicable need to strike back. "I don't know," I say to Prim while digging into my zucchini. "The quiet ones are the most interesting where I come from. It means they have nothing to prove. They're real. Being real is cool. Adventure can be overrated."

I don't believe that last part for a second, but it does the trick. Prim blinks. Mr. Everdeen studies me. Katniss, however, appears baffled by my chivalry, her brows drawn together.

Mr. Everdeen insists his eldest daughter walk me home. I feel like I'm ten.

As we migrate through the darkness, she breaks the silence. "You didn't have to do that with Prim."

"I know," I say.

I guess the fact that I don't explain further makes her relax, because she offers me a grateful smile wrapped with a bow.

When we reach the cabin, I decide to detour her evening. "Come in for a sec," I say in a low voice, then step inside without giving her time to refuse. As I kneel in front of the wood stove and light a fire, I sense her hovering in the doorway. "What's wrong?" I bait. "Think I'll bite?"

She steps inside. I grin to myself. Weirdly, I have no clue what I'm doing or why. Maybe I want to annoy her boyfriend. Maybe I want to send him a message that trying to arm-wrestle me out of his romantic turf only attracts me more. Maybe I'm interested in seeing that fiery girl from the first night.

Katniss keeps the door open. I pass her and close it with a deliberate click.

"It needs to warm up in here," I say, enjoying the pink tinting her cheeks. I flip through my iPod. "How long have you been with Tall Gale?"

She uncrosses her arms. "Six months, but I've known him all my life."

"You can come further into the room, you know."

"That's perfectly alright. I know what the cabin looks like. I see you cleaned the wall."

"You didn't leave me much of a painting when you threw water at it. Does Tall Gale like archery?"

"I don't know."

"Huh." I chose a song I think she'll like.

"Gale is intrigued by hunting," she goes on. "But with snares as a method."

"Have you told him about your plans to be an archer?"

"I have no plans," she declares. "Gale is fond of the harvest like me—" she ends with a squeak when I stand and face her. An acoustic guitar vibrates through the cabin. A band of earthy voices begins to sing.

"What kind of music do you like?" I ask.

"We sing in church. And some kids in our Order hide radios in their rooms. I've heard stuff before, but my father doesn't permit it at home."

"That's tragic," I murmur and curl a finger at her. "Come here."

Katniss blinks. I lose patience and close the gap. Her body heat is a magnet to my own.

My fingers toy with the sleeve of her dress. "Dance with me."

Her throat bobs. "I'm not allowed to unless I'm with a group."

"Dance with me."

"I have the distinct feeling you mean _sway_ with you. Without steps. Dancing without steps is just an excuse to touch."

"Dance with me."

She gulps. "Why?"

"Because you're allowed to here. Because the music's beautiful. Because it's powerful. Because it speaks when you can't. And because you want to."

"Y-you flatter yourself," she stutters as I take her hand. When she doesn't object, I flatten my other hand on the small of her back and press her against me. Beneath the thick cotton, her skin yields under the pressure.

We begin to "sway." The melody is a current that pushes us in a lazy circle. Katniss's palm sweats into mine, creating a humid little pocket. She keeps her head down, shy and demure and not at all what I want.

I tip my gaze until it catches hers. "Don't break eye contact with me."

After that, she doesn't. Her face becomes the only source of light and air in the room. Those steel-cut eyes unwillingly land on my mouth.

We fall silent. Slowly, I graze my thumb over her hand, and she catches her breath. The sound rolls through my chest, cracking it open and forming a chasm. I want to fill it with cement before she dives in and stays there.

This is a mistake, I realize. This whole fucking thing is a mistake. My blood is howling, and I'm about _this close_ to—

The song ends. We switch gears as if our senses have been hijacked and we've just recognized the violation. I jerk back. Katniss wipes the residue of our dance from her hands, curtly wishes me a good night, and bails.

I'm an idiot. I've been telling myself it's a stupid idea to let her in, but I blew off that rule today. I dug my own grave. The old Peeta asked her to dance and got high off the Katniss drug, sucked up a bong's worth of it, and annihilated the new Peeta who normally likes his girls quick and loud.

It hits me why I invited her inside. It had nothing to do with messing with Gale or the challenge, the _rush_ , of testing Katniss's boundaries.

Shit. I have a thing for her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depending on the community, rumspringa seems to begin and end anywhere from 14 to 21. Which is another reason I've made Katniss's Order fictional. For this story, I've placed rumspringa from ages 16 to 18.

_Good Girl_

I'm unsettled. I ask myself over and over, how could I have let him touch and hold me, stare at me, talk to me like that? I ask myself but have no answer. With him, life unfurls. Against my better judgment, I end up floating. It's feels too good.

Why do I think of him so often? Why do I spy on his cabin after delivering his food? Why do I have these fantasies that no amount of prayer can dissolve?

I keep looking at my hands, coarse from good labor but not varied in experience. Am I being loyal to my Order, my faith, by choosing blindly without comparison? It's my rumspringa. My community allows me to embrace these things Peeta Mellark has brought to the forefront.

My father had questioned my decision about rumspringa. He tried to encourage me, just as he encourages me now in small ways to interact with Peeta Mellark. He wants us to achieve a mutual regard for one another, as he did with the boy's father. For all his strictness, Papa is nostalgic when it comes to that man. And he trusts me to be responsible.

Other than for archery, I wasn't interested in exploration before. Should I be now?

The music Peeta Mellark played in the cabin was unexpectedly lovely. The guitar. The voices. I could have curled up in that song and fallen asleep, or bathed in it, or just kept swaying with him. It wasn't until I got home that I missed the music. It had been so long since I tested my own singing skills, but that night, I prayed and then hummed the tune from our dance.

It seems I do have more than one opportunity to speak. In the way I move through the fields. In the way I care for my family. In my faith, which feels even more expansive to me now when I sit in church and when I kneel. In my service to neighbors. Yes, all these things.

But in addition to that, I start to dream of a bow and arrow. Moreover, I dream of a boy who isn't my beau. Who isn't even Amish and who has only been here for four weeks. Someone who isn't going to be here forever.

Now, it's October. We've returned to avoiding one another, but it's not easy. I catch glimpses of him working or talking to my father. I'll be hanging laundry outside, and I'll crane my neck, searching. Whenever I wash the dishes, I peer out the window. I regularly pull his drawing from my bedside table and admire it.

Today, I see him across the wheat field stacking hay bales. Puddles of sweat darken his thin shirt. His arms constrict as they bend, lift, twist, and toss. Wet heat soaks my mouth…and other places I'm too ashamed to dwell on.

Giggles skip into the air, popping from the ravenous mouths of Delly Cartwright and Madge Undersee, who are also watching him instead of doing their work. Their pink faces catalogue every one of his muscles before moving on to appraise his backside.

Clearly, he's a mind reader, because he glances their way, smiles, and winks at them. And they whimper.

I disdain Peeta Mellark with every fiber of my being!

It occurs to me, in a rather painful and embarrassing way, that he was most likely trying to compromise me during our dance. I shouldn't underestimate that roguish side of him. It is evident in the way he talks and moves: This boy isn't a virgin. He knows how to approach girls.

This reckoning disillusions me for the next twenty-four hours. I've listened to Delly and Madge talk about sex before. It's not unheard of during rumspringa. Pregnancies have happened, followed by swift nuptials. I don't judge those girls for this. I always planned to give myself to my husband, not so much out of principal, but as an orderly progression of events. It simply makes sense as a ritual of courtship and marriage. It's uncomplicated.

I haven't allowed emotional or physical variables to derail the equation. But then, I've never felt these sort of stirrings until now.

Life progresses to disastrous proportions the following afternoon, when I dash into the house to wash my hands and push open the door to the bathroom. The sculpted profile of Peeta Mellark's body in the shower grinds me to a halt. His head is bent, palms pressed into the wall as he leans into the water. Steam rises around him. He doesn't notice me.

Internally, I explode. I do more than peek. And then I dash away.

That night, I clutch my sheets and remember the droplets riding down his skin. I beat my head against the pillow but still hear the water streaming.

What is happening to me?

kpkpkpkpkp

Gale picks me up in his buggy on Sunday evening. His tanned face is polished and smooth. Once we're married, I will miss seeing him like this. Amish men grow beards when they become husbands, but I'm fond of his unhampered features.

We head to Madge's house for our weekly gathering with friends. It's always the same thing. Board games, gossip, Delly and Madge boasting about the fruits of rumspringa—cars and jeans and rap music over the weekend.

Tonight, I actually listen to them. Their stories remind me of the beginning, when I turned sixteen, when I refused their offer to join them. I'm sad thinking of it now.

It made sense at the time. Rumspringa is not just about getting the curiosity over modern life out of our system. It's also a method to finding a life mate by hanging out freely with boys. Gale and I both knew long before he proposed that we'd end up together, so there was no need for either of us to participate.

If I'm honest with myself, I let Gale's reasoning override my desire to try archery. Should I have listened to him? Should I still listen? It's not too late. I can enjoy this time until I'm eighteen.

Gale covers my hand with his. "Are you okay?"

I'm not concentrating on the game we're playing. It's not surprising that he's noticed. Nothing about this night is surprising.

I stare at my lap. "Are you ever surprised by things?"

He blinks at me. Too much contemplation makes him uncomfortable.

"Or do you want to be?" I question. "Are you ever curious, like Delly and Madge? Like about music, for instance. Do you ever want to know more?"

He frowns. "Why?"

I know that frown, so I give up. I'm being absurd. This is the right life for me. There's no reason to question it now.

As Gale drives me home, I tip my head back and inhale the autumn breeze, admiring the blankets of corn framing the lane on both sides and the cyclical clomping of the horses' hooves.

Out of nowhere, he pulls over and drops the reigns. The only other time he diverted us like this was when he proposed.

His eyes prune me like a hedge. "I don't like that boy."

I'm put off by the judgment in his tone and simply gape.

"I don't like him talking to you. I don't like him working beside you. I don't like the way he looks at you. I don't like the way he's influencing you."

I reel back. "I don't like you accusing me of being weak."

"Katniss, he's not one of us. You don't know him."

"Neither do you," I defend. "You've met him once."

"You've been acting strange for weeks. Why all of a sudden do you care what Delly and Madge do? What's all this talk about surprises and music? If it's not because of him, then what it is? Me?"

"No—"

"I'm worried. You're sheltered. He could jump all over that if he wants."

"And you think I'd let him?"

"A few weeks ago, I would have said no way. I'm not so sure anymore," he asserts.

"Peeta Mellark is a self-indulgent hound. He doesn't matter to me in the least!"

"Your voice is getting awfully high over someone who doesn't matter."

I bristle, because I fear he might be right. I want to promise Gale that I'm not falling for some temporary intruder, but Gale ruins everything with his next words. "I will not let him take what's mine."

My legs are out of the buggy and my feet are pounding down the lane while my head tries to catch up. What's _his_? I am not a kept woman. I am not his horse.

Gale is my friend—my beau, my future. Of course, the husband is in charge, but I don't care for him prematurely exercising his marital rights. I don't care for the reality of it.

"Katniss," he pleads, the carriage appearing beside me. "Please get in. Don't be mad."

I swing my arms, whipping a curtain of corn stalks out of my way, and cut through the field. Gale's voice fades and then dies along with my tolerant mood. I am unforgivably cross. I need release.

I can see the roof of my family's home, but I bypass it, using the hike to settle the uproar inside me. I walk until I'm breathless and partially satisfied. Bursting through the field, I head through the wooded area and double-back to the house.

"Rough night?"

Peeta Mellark's voice is a chain jerking me to a standstill. I glare at his shadow leaning against a tree. I've seen him naked, I think to myself wickedly. Naked and wet. The profile of his body, at least. Which was more than enough.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, noting his leather jacket and the fact that he's not stationed inside the cabin. One thing is for sure, he isn't out here to stargaze. That blond halo of hair is a falsehood.

The accusation drops from my lips like a boulder. "You're sneaking out."

He struts over to me. His face is piebald, darkness and light.

"And you're pissed," he says.

"Not at you," I answer, though that's not completely true. I'm mad that he asked me to dance. I'm mad that he smiled at Delly and Madge. I'm mad that he drew me that picture of my hands and kapp. I'm mad that he told me to _find out_ , when I was perfectly content with my role in this life before then. I'm mad at him for insinuating that I could pick up a bow if I wanted. I'm mad at him for not being Amish. I'm mad at him for believing our choices are limitless.

I'm mad because I'm not walking away from him. But I'm also mad at my beau. "Gale and I—"

"Ah. Lover's quarrel."

"Please do not make this into a joke."

He releases a deep breath that somehow finds its way into my bones. There's a moment of indecision. Then backbone. Decision made.

"Wanna get out of here?" he tempts.

Doubt and excitement. I cannot pick which feeling is stronger. I think about his wanton ways and scrutinize his intentions.

"I will not be toyed with," I state.

He reads my face. "That makes two of us."

Reluctantly, I let him take my hand, marveling at the warmth of his skin and its instant calming effect. He guides me to the outskirts of the farm. He doesn't interrogate me about what happened with Gale, and I appreciate that. I keep asking myself what I'm doing with this strange boy, why it's easy to be accept the offer of a stranger, while I hold my ground with people I've known all my life.

Peeta Mellark is a kite I can't help chasing. Yet my heels dig into the soil when I see the motorcycle. It's hidden behind a bush near an unpaved road. He notices my shock and puts a finger to his lips to shush me.

I snap, "You didn't!"

"No. My friend Finnick did. When my brother Rye came to see you, Finnick drove him. They scoped out the area and then Finnick described this spot and told me he'd find a time to leave the wheels for me. He figured I'd need a breather at some point. Guess it took a few weeks for the coast to clear."

"Peeta Mellark. This is against the rules."

He grins.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I say, come with me." He straddles the motorcycle. "Let me show you my kind of fun."

I step back. Our Order teaches us to beware of the rebellious spirit. Yes, I'm exempt from it because of my age at present, but still. I can't do this. Can I?

"Katniss." His tongue whips up my name like butter. "Those feelings running through your veins right now. Aren't those honest? How fast is your heart beating?"

I turn away. "Don't ask me that."

"Why? You have that rumspringa thing, right? Your sister was telling me about it. Says you're not taking advantage. There's nothing wrong with your life if it makes you happy. But don't you want to explore first? Discover what else is out there, all the other ways to live before you make a choice? How can you be sure if you've known nothing else?"

"What good has it done _you_?" I shoot back. "This life you've lived. That world."

His face clouds. An invisible line inflates between us. I think about my family, my home, Delly and Madge, Gale, the parts of me still coiled and taped up.

I cross that line and get on the bike. He offers me his helmet, which is slightly too big but will protect me from the wind. He sets my hands on his waist.

"Don't let go," he says.

_I don't think I can._

Then we're flying. The landscape blurs. The air is unimpressed with my coat and tries to yank it off me while my skirt dances around my knees. Farms disappear, replaced by forest and a two-lane road separated by a yellow line that flashes in and out of my vision. I latch onto to the boy taking me away from home. He veers around a corner, the motorcycle leaning at a dangerous angle that should scare me but doesn't.

I laugh. I laugh into the helmet. I'm glad he can't hear me.

We zip from one route to the next to the next. I feel like a bird, flapping and sailing and gliding. I lose track of time. I'm another girl, but I'm still myself. I'm amazed and scared.

I'm lightheaded as we cruise up a hill and putter to a stop. Ahead of us is a vista of the city, a giant crown glittering with lights and skyscrapers so tall that I'd forgotten people could get so close to heaven. I find myself envying those people and their thousands of lives filled with heights and stars.

Peeta Mellark slides off the bike and pulls the helmet off my head. "Now was that fun or what?"

Pointing to the metropolis, I ask, "Is that where we're going?"

"Nah. That would be too much sensory overload too soon."

"I'll have you know, I'm not a cave girl."

He grips the bike on either side of me and leans in. "Patience, Girl Who Wants to be On Fire. Seeing things from a distance is the first step. You have to be stoked little by little."

He smells of leather and wood chips and a sweet kind of spice. He studies my position splayed over the motorcycle and then draws back, leaving me breathless. He sits on the grassy knoll and pats the ground in invitation. I camp beside him, tucking my skirt under my legs. A whisper of inches separates us.

The view is a palace of steel and concrete. I hear the faint echo of a siren, maybe an ambulance or police car. Raw, untamed, unpredictable life.

"Do you miss it?" I ask.

Peeta Mellark is quiet. I'm used to him spitting out whatever he thinks. Seeing him in contemplation is striking, like I'm talking to a sketch of him instead of the tornado I've come to know.

He shrugs. "My brothers and Finnick aren't half-bad. I could stand seeing them again."

"You're being flippant," I disapprove.

He rips out a handful of grass and tosses it. He doesn't want to talk about what's real. I wouldn't want to be pushed, either, yet I insist on tripping him off that balance beam of indifference, hoping he'll tumble into the truth. We're good at doing this to each other.

On this hill, we're between the silence and the noise. A neutral spot for us to be together.

"I miss the art," he concedes. He tells me about the faces he's painted throughout his city. "It's the only way to get rid of them, all the faces I've seen that just…stood out in a crowd. Out of my head and onto a wall—that's how it works. Otherwise, it's like I can feel them leading a better life than me, and I want to hate them."

"Perhaps their lives are worse," I suggest, though I feel guilty for implying the suffering of others should be a comfort by comparison. "Perhaps you're meant to appreciate what you do have, not envy what isn't there."

He grimaces at the view. "How would you know? You're too chicken to consider what kind of lives other people lead."

"I'm considering yours right now, am I not?"

"I saw your face, too. I painted it."

My heart stops. I don't know what to make of his admittance.

"My father died over a year ago. The night I got arrested, it was the one-year anniversary of his death. I needed to get out of the freaking house, so I left to paint another wall. I just let an image come." Peeta Mellark turns to me. "I painted you out of thin air, even though I'd never saw you before."

The breeze tickles the ends of his hair. They have a tendency to curl.

I venture, "What did you think of me?"

"You don't want to know."

It's my turn to scowl. "Then why did you bring it up?"

"To shock you, I guess."

So I decide to shock him back. I grab his arm and twist it into the moonlight, because I've always wanted to know what on earth would make him mar his skin. The tattoo inside his wrist is a name.

_James._

That's not what I dwell on, though. I dwell on the scar beneath it. The rumpled patch of lighter skin. The mark of a severe burn.

"Oh, I...I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't know—"

Peeta Mellark tugs his arm away. "It's my father's name."

"You tattooed it over the scar?"

His silence is painful. He doesn't face me, yet he says, "Don't look at me like that."

I gather my courage and cup his jaw, urging him to meet my gaze. Peeta Mellark's eyes darken from blue to black. Another thing my Order has taught me is to beware of being too intimate, for it will never last. The only constant intimacy lies within our faith, as it should be.

I stray from this, eager to comfort him. "You don't have to be ashamed. You don't have to hide. Tell me who did this to you."

He asks quietly, "Do you love your mother?"

"My mother passed away."

"I know. Do you love her?"

I'd suspected his father abused him, but I realize I was wrong. In my expression, he sees my answer and grins wryly. "Neither do I."

That's it. We both grew up with kind fathers and unkind mothers, yet our losses aren't the same. One of us still has the good parent. The other doesn't.

His mother burned him. I wonder even more why he tattooed his father's name over the scar. When I first met him, I thought he was merely being vain. I've misjudged him.

Growing up, I've always believed that ornamentation and wearing different kinds of clothes encourages competition and divides people from each other. It promotes the self instead of togetherness. But what if symbols like his tattoo, or objects like his rings, have a deeper meaning? Emotions like devotion or sorrow? Could I hold such things so dearly? Would I take solace or strength from them?

We melt into the city view and say no more, not as we sit there, not as we ride home, not as he parks the bike behind the bush, not as we navigate the woods to the midpoint between his cabin and my house. Standing there, I absorb his pale face, puzzled by how much I've enjoyed myself tonight. Even though all we did was talk of sad things, we had the glorious ride and vista to console us.

We had each other. We had our honesty. I made him quiet for once. And he made me feel loud.

He taps my chin. "See you later, Katniss."

I watch him disappear into the shadows, wondering how it will feel the last time he turns his back on me, when these two months are over. I can't reason the void he leaves behind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to my beta, DustWriter, for making great points along the way.
> 
> Music: "Empty" by Ray LaMontagne.

_Good Girl_

The next night, I get on the bike again. And the next night. And the night after that.

I tell myself not to, but the roar of the motorcycle calls to me. I sneak out of the house while my family sleeps. Even with rumspringa and my father wanting Peeta Mellark and I to be close...well, he does not want us as close as this.

I pray for forgiveness, but why is this is something I should ask forgiveness for? It's okay to be friends.

And then there's all the places Peeta Mellark takes me. The east side, where he's from, is not a good idea. He's on probation and could be recognized. So we go to the west side.

He takes me to a bookstore, where I wander the shelves in blissful agony. We sit in a corner where he reads a poetry collection to me and buys it for me against my protests. I hide the book under my mattress.

He takes me to an arcade. My heart seizes when we find an archery game booth. I hit each target and grin too wide for my mouth. The man working the booth says I'm a natural, and I fall more in love with the bow than I did as a child.

He takes me to a tavern where we listen to a band play a mix of rock and folk. He tries to get me to dance, but I'm shy in front of strangers. I don't say yes until I notice the way other girls are looking at him. Seeing their glossy locks, I take off my kapp. We dance like we did in the cabin, this time with orange and blue spotlights on us.

Afterward, I mention how warm it is. Without warning, he unfastens one of the snaps at the top of my dress and splits it open, revealing a slice of my collarbone. His finger curls over my skin, lingering for a moment. He stares at me and no one else.

He says, "That's better."

I shiver.

I don't care for the noise or rushed pace or the sorrowful sight of a homeless person bundled up on one street, but I like the carefree, creative, and studious diversions this world contains. Peeta Mellark describes a vast park, and other pockets of nature throughout the city, and markets, and local churches that also practice my faith, and outlying areas where farms welcome anyone and everyone, only an hour's drive from the skyscrapers. I like it enough to scare me.

We go out for only a couple of hours at a time, but I'm exhausted during the day. So is he. It takes its toll on our work. I begin to worry that people will notice.

kpkpkpkpkp

Beyond the wheat field, the landscape has officially changed. The trees ripen with fall colors of gold, amber, and rosy red. The breeze seduces my bangs out from under my kapp. I squish wheat to my chest when I see him with my father. Papa is showing him around the tractor and pointing out the different mechanisms. Peeta Mellark keeps his arms crossed, but he's listening, snatching clandestine glances at my father. It's a temporary image that wills a grin from me. I enjoy seeing them together.

I turn away to find Gale's shadow aimed in my direction from across the way, taking in the whole spectacle, and remorse pinches me. I keep my head down. It stays down until I hear my father leave Peeta Mellark alone.

I cart my bundle over to where he's tying unruly knots to secure the bales. I tap his back. His boyish face travels over his shoulder. "Hey," he says.

Mutely, I offer the stack to him. As he takes it, our fingers connect. We stay that way for too long. Delly and Madge prance through the field. So do Old Sae and Thom and the Hawthorns and dozens of others. Everyone is close by.

Peeta Mellark asks, "Are you quiet because you're feeling Amish this morning? Or has my bike wiped you of energy?"

"What we're doing is dangerous."

"Only if you want to go for another ride."

"I can't anymore. I shouldn't. I'm with..."

Gale. Who's approaching us.

My beau moving through the field stops me from finishing my sentence. I muster as dedicated an expression as I can, but it doesn't phase him. His attention is solely on Peeta Mellark, who reads something into Gale's stance.

The instant he reaches us, he says, "Stay away from Katniss."

"Gale," I hiss.

"Stay away from my girl."

People begin to stare. Delly and Madge feast on the scene with an absurd amount of envy. My sister watches me with new interest.

Peeta Mellark tilts his head. "Your girl isn't a puppet. And she isn't invisible. She's standing right here." He looks at me squarely. "You can decide for yourself who you want to hang out with."

"And you'll let her, I'm sure," Gale says.

Those blue wells sweep across my face and assess my hazarded expression. He shakes his head dismissively at Gale. "Sorry but the Amish aren't my type. No offense." He goes back to knotting bales.

Gale frowns. "Oh, really?"

"That's enough," I scold, my cheeks on fire.

"Because from what I hear, you Mellarks tend to get pretty attached to the Everdeens."

Peeta Mellark stops.

"Can't imagine you'd be much different from your father. Too weak of a spirit to fix yourself without help, is that it?"

Peeta Mellark turns.

"Did you inherit his problems as well?"

Peeta Mellark balls his hand into an authentic fist. "Come closer and say that to me."

"Just keep your hands to yourself."

"I don't touch what doesn't want to be touched."

"I'm going to need a better answer than that."

"You're also going to need _stitches_ in a second," Peeta Mellark warns him.

My father cuts into the space between them but doesn't say a word, just peers at one boy, then the other, locking eyes with them. My father works his magic with that one look. Prim and I have buckled under it many times. It's a magnificent, reproachful, disappointed look that one doesn't forget. It breeds humility.

Gale hangs his head in shame. Peeta Mellark glares at his shoes, his anger still running like a motor.

My father touches my elbow, and then Gale's, silently leading us away. Gale refuses to glance at me. I don't know what I would say if he did. He's my friend and my future, but the memory of the motorcycle ride last night envelopes me with such tenderness that I'm uncertain whether I'm doing my heart a favor by our union, or a disservice.

kpkpkpkpkp

Accident-prone Thom has broken another bone, this time by tripping down the stairs. Old Sae needs to go see him, not only to heal but to calm him down. He's always been a dramatic fellow, bellowing over as little as a paper cut. There's no telling what state he's in now.

Prim, who's been learning Old Sae's craft, needs to go to Thom's house. Ever the protective parent, my father will accompany her in Sae's carriage. It's a far stretch out to that part of the area.

It's also the first real storm we've had this season. The strength of the downpour and the wailing wind concern me. It's the sort of rain that causes floods over certain lanes. But Prim is dedicated, and Sae made it all the way over here just to get her in the first place. I'm envious of their relationship. Prim looks up to her.

My father pats my shoulder and tells me to go ahead and eat supper without them. It could be a long night.

It turns out to be precisely that. I glance out the rattling window as if my glare alone will plug the storm. Three hours have passed, which means my family must be blocked from returning. The main route is undoubtedly a river by now. It isn't the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. They'll most likely have to wait until morning, and we have no phone, so they can't call me.

Thunder spears the sky. I stir my lukewarm pumpkin soup, past the time when I should have eaten. Angry weather and I don't compliment one another.

I've been so concerned about my family returning, and being left alone, that it's only now I remember Peeta Mellark still hasn't been served. He might not have leftover fruit or vegetables from the last batch we gave him. I chew on my nails. He must be hungry by now, but it's a very wet and slimy walk to the cabin, and the lightening continues to snarl down at the earth.

I fill a container and grab my coat and an umbrella. Not one minute after I leave the walkway, my shoes and dress are caked in mud. I waddle like a lost duck. The umbrella flips inside-out, and I stomp my already soiled feet as the wind tears the apparatus from my fingers, and my body is instantly drenched.

I'm watching the umbrella dash away when another slice of thunder punches the tree beside me. I glance up as the monstrous girth of a branch drops from the sky, aiming for my scalp and thus my very existence.

Something hard rams into my side. It's knocks the breath from me as I crash into the ground. The side of my face gets plastered into the mud. Then a pair of hands yank me to a sitting position.

Peeta Mellark lets go only to frame my cheeks. He's just as drenched as I am. Behind him, I see the branch that would have killed me on the ground. I'm too numb from the speed at which everything happened to be traumatized.

"Are you okay?" he calls to me over the torrential rain.

I twist my head over my shoulder. I'd almost made it to the cabin but hadn't noticed. I wipe my eyes and nod.

"Are you an idiot?" he adds.

"I was bringing you supper."

"For fuck's sake, Katniss!"

He helps me up, and we sprint into the cabin, where my teeth begin to chatter. Peeta Mellark takes the soup container from me, which I've somehow managed to keep a hold on, and then tosses me a small towel. I wash up over the water basin and then station myself by the wood stove, swallowing the fire's heat with my body and soul. Outside, the storm slaps everything in its path, with energy to spare.

"Take your clothes off."

Peeta Mellark's words paralyze me. He's stripped off his sodden shirt, his muscles flexing in the orange light. This is the most alone I've ever been with a boy.

When I don't respond, he glances over at me, appraising me up and down. I'm self-conscious of how my wool dress clings to my silhouette but reeks of goat. I fret over which of these details he notices more.

Rummaging through his clothes, he tosses me a pair of pants and a button-down shirt, then turns around. It's a frenzy as I dry myself and jump into his clothes. I draw the line at removing my undergarments, especially since they're merely damp. When I'm settled, I look like I've shrunk while the clothes have remained the same size.

He wheels back around and smiles. "You look adorable in that getup."

"Stop it."

"You should wear my clothes more often."

I don't want him to see how much I agree, so I collect my wet dress, stockings, and kapp and hang them over a chair.

Peeta Mellark heats the soup over the wood stove, then sits on the floor and gobbles it quickly. I was right. He was hungry.

I also see that while I was changing, he swapped his pants for dry ones, too. But he's shirtless. As he twists to stoke the fire, the dandelion tattoo blazes over the width of his shoulder blade.

I perch across from him. "Why did you choose a dandelion?"

He shrugs. "It was a signature design of my father's. He used to make sugar cookies at the bakery to decorate the cakes. He liked to prove the most unlikely things could be beautiful."

I haven't seen the tattoo up close. "Is it...is there a scar there, too?"

"Not under this one. Just the one on my wrist."

We listen to the downpour and rolling thunder. He taps the spoon inside the empty bowl. "The first time Mom hit me was right after Dad died. Her moods had changed. Something snapped in her because she's not...not right in the head anymore. I guess it's the grief. I guess she doesn't know where else to direct her anger. It's like she doesn't see my brothers or me. Not really. Anyway, I was in the bakery closing up when it happened. She accused me of taking money from the register, which I didn't, so I made a smart-ass comment. The slap shocked both of us. It didn't stop her from doing it again or from finding new ways to punish Rye and Sam and me."

Peeta Mellark studies the wrist tattoo. "I wanted Dad's name to be kind of a shield, I guess, from my mom."

It's a challenge for me not to despise the woman. "My mother used to ignore Prim and me," I confess. "She'd leave us alone sometimes. She didn't touch us, but it still hurt. She didn't hug us or my father. I don't..."

"Tell me," he urges.

"I don't miss her." My chin wobbles. "She didn't deserve us."

He nods. "I'm making things hard for you here. That whole drama with Tall Gale." His eyes are bright and wild and beautiful. "Should I go easier on you, Katniss?"

I refuse to respond to that. I'm in his room, in his clothes, at night. "Gale was wrong to say what he did. It's not like him. He didn't mean to be cruel, Peeta Mellark. You should have held your tongue, too."

"The loudest men are usually the weakest."

"You've been talking with my father," I observe.

Peeta Mellark chuckles. "He kicked my ass with that line."

My own chuckle arches into a yawn.

"Take the bed," he says. "You're not going back out there."

I don't argue as I curl into the quilt. The bed smells like him: sweetened spices and wood and leather. He doesn't hide the fact that he's watching me, and I don't hide the fact that I don't mind. Storms make me nervous. I feel better knowing those blue orbs are on me...

I wake up hugging his pillow. It's still dark and brutal outside. And he's gone.

Sitting up immediately, I scan the room and find him in a chair, painting that same spot on the wall again. I relax and sigh out loud.

His brush halts, then resumes its business, slathering blue to create a night sky. I rise and shuffle to his chair, and an unfamiliar ache rushes through me. It's the hill where he took me to see the city. The grass, the skyscrapers, the lights. The only thing missing is us.

My eyes sting. I feel melancholic and desperate at the same time. "It's pretty."

He looks up. We're dry and warm and by ourselves, caught between a lovely picture and each other.

I gasp as he reaches out and pulls me down onto the chair. I land in front of him, my back against his bare chest, my hips caged in his thighs, but it feels right. It feels right to let him touch me. It's soft and intoxicating. And I'm doomed.

All around us, rain slams against the cabin. It covers the window in a blurry sheet. Peeta Mellark stares ahead, stretching his arm over me and swabbing the image in thick colors. The brush rubs, strokes, caresses the wall. And I'm mesmerized.

His muscles graze against my spine. His chin comes to rest on my shoulder. I angle my head, permitting him to lean further in, my blood racing when his lips skim the side of my neck, pausing every so often to nibble. My mouth parts, releasing a gust of air that I feel him breathe in. That very feminine place between my thighs bursts into tiny sparks.

He keeps painting as if nothing is happening. But he murmurs into my ear, because all at once _everything_ is happening. "Have you known pleasure, Katniss?"

And I'm alert, and he continues, "Have you ever been touched?"

I've kissed Gale before, but it has never been remotely as potent as the sound of Peeta Mellark's voice asking that question. Reluctance prowls through my mind thinking of Gale, who trusts me, who has always been so essential. While a sweeter, hotter, stronger need spans the circumference of my heart, overpowering the reasons why I can't, why I shouldn't, why it won't last, why it can't last.

This boy, however different, makes me feel a whole new kind of alive. His free arm slides over my stomach. His hand maneuvers into the gap between my pants and shirt, scorching the curve of my hipbone. His thumb traces circles over my skin. My heads falls back completely as I melt against him in surrender. The motions and the words and the half-light and the languid brush strokes and his body encase me deep, deep, deep. Oh, so deep into this moment.

I'm fully aware of what's about to happen. I'm going to allow it.

He hums against my ear. "Have you ever felt passion?"

I shake my head.

"Do you want me to stop?"

I shake my head again.

My pulse exceeds the speed of sound as Peeta Mellark sets down the brush. He tilts my face up and back, toward his. He locks us in this position. Our eyes connect.

My body. His body. Heat.

My gaze. His gaze. Desire.

My mouth. His mouth. Passion.

Passion. I encounter it for the first time in that secluded cabin. As thunder pelts the distant landscape, we collide. His firm lips slant over mine and claim them, own them with the dizzying motions of his jaw. His tongue traces my mouth, top and then bottom, begging entrance. My lips spread like wings, desperate to be fed every succulent drop of him. My hand steals up behind me and climbs the wall of his chest, feeling his heart gallop beneath my fingertips, then clamp around his neck.

"Kiss me back," he says against my mouth. "Do it. Taste me."

My tongue meets his. And the kiss explodes. His velvety groan mingles with my petal-thin gasp. It penetrates the well inside me, creating a hot tide pool in my mouth and between my breasts, where pearls of sweat run down my skin. His fingers dig into my hair. My already disheveled braid comes undone. And I don't care.

"Oh," I mewl as he breaks away, peers at me, and shakes his head. He mumbles what sounds like a curse and kisses me again.

His mouth fastens onto mine. His hand clasps the back of my head to hold me in place. As our tongues ebb and flow, his other hand burns beneath the elastic of my pants, his nails lightly grazing my hip, drawing a whimper from me that he swallows whole.

Afterward, I sag against him while we catch our breaths. Speechless. Overwhelmed. Overheated. So much.

He brushes his trembling mouth across my forehead. The gesture brings us back to earth. My eyes drift closed to the gentle motions of him retrieving the paint brush and resuming his task. In my delirium, I feel him carry me back to bed. I ask him to stay with me, and we gather ourselves under the blanket, and he encases me in his strong arms.

I babble something about hope. He holds me tighter, though he doesn't need to. Because I'm not going anywhere.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	8. Chapter 8

_Bad Boy_

We wake up kissing. It happens in that inconclusive point between sleep and consciousness. The first thing I recognize is her steady breath hitting my throat, and then a shift of weight on the bed, and then her drowsy mouth finds mine, and then there's us mapping out one another's lips. It's a heady sensation. My mind identifies her by taste but doesn't register what's going on. It's like waking to a very comfortable position in bed and sinking deeper into it. Only the down of her mouth feels infinitely better.

Then we stir. Things go from hazy to solid in a matter of seconds. I sense an alertness in her movements. My lids flash open, and there she is, and there we are, mouths attached, and we grin into the kiss.

But when I break away, I see the lines slowly bunch between her dark brows. I sense her working through what's happening. I find myself doing the same thing. We study each other. The rain has stopped. For once, I don't have words. I've never slept with a girl while _not sleeping_ with her. I don't think laying in bed has ever felt nicer or more terrifying.

She has to get back to the house before her family comes home. The goodbye is disjointed. At the door, she won't meet my eyes. And yet when she turns, I grab her arm and wheel her back around to kiss her once more. And she doesn't object. She's serious again, but she molds her tender mouth to mine anyway.

With a heavy sigh, I let her go and watch as she cuts through the fog in her damp dress. I fight myself not to run after her and trap her against the hard, wet bark of a tree. Last night, that kiss had strangled me. It was more lasting than any sex I've ever had.

I hope she knows what she's doing with me. I sure as hell don't know what I'm doing, but I usually don't think too much about what I do in the first place. That's why I'm such a troublemaker, I guess.

For some reason, Katniss overlooks that part of me. I'm stunned that she trusts me this much, with no expectations of me pushing things too far.

Which means this isn't good. I'm out of my mind, I'm losing control, and most of the time I don't give a shit. She has too intense of an effect on me. I'm constantly being pulled in two different directions. I don't want to revert back to the old me. Any second, I could trip into that skin.

Usually, risk is my thing. In this case, it's not. This connection we have is the kind of bad I don't prefer, but I can't make myself stop. I'm rebelling against my own self. It's nuts.

Inside the cabin, I fall face first onto my pillow, cursing at myself to get it together.

kpkpkpkpkp

Now in the corn field, midday, I'm still cursing. Only this time, it's because I'm fucking lost. I was too busy thinking of her and nursing an erection to focus on where I was going. I dump the shoulder bag I'd been hauling and strut east, then west, then who the hell knows. The stalks are taller than Tall Gale. I hear the voices of the other workers, I hear Mr. Everdeen, but it's all labyrinthine to me. The field is a mess after the storm. The ground is moist and the stalks damp, but that hasn't delayed the work.

On a stroke of good luck, I cross into a row and find that naughty braid dangling down her olive neck. I sneak up on her, debating whether to cover her eyes or tickle her or whisper something decadent into her ear.

None of the above. I dip my head close and draw out a long _moooooo_.

Katniss yelps, jumps around, and sees me laughing. She scowls, tries not to laugh back, but an unwilling chuckle pops from her anyway. It sounds like music.

She stiffens when we hear people getting closer. I guess I wasn't that lost after all.

She gulps when I press my forehead to hers. It's a mix of guarded and confused and curious... _really_ curious. She's blushing but uncertain. I'm humiliated by the goofy middle-school smile that I know I'm wearing.

"Hey," I say.

"Hello," she says, then wavers. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Says who?"

"You didn't come looking for me, did you?"

"I tracked your scent."

When she wrinkles her nose in disapproval, I drag my thumb over her lips, producing a startled intake of breath from her mouth that makes it adorably difficult for her to lecture me. "Does it matter how I got here?" I ask.

"We can't..." she begins.

"Can't what?"

"Can't be caught together like this."

I told myself not to push or make things complicated, but I feel her wanting. So I suggest, "Let's go somewhere, then."

"No," she answers.

"Yes," I insist, stepping closer and locking eyes with her.

She frowns, and I think she's going to refuse. But then she takes my hand. In a sudden hurry, she leads me down the row. We turn into another one, and then another. I loose my direction again, but she seems to know where she's going. She plows through, her breathing getting more labored.

The green columns of the stalks shiver as we pass them, flashing on both sides of us. The further we travel, the riper their smell gets. I hold out my free hand, my palm beating against their long, solid, tight frames. Dew from the rain covers them in a glistening sheen.

At one point, we stop. The shoulder bag of corn she's carrying has to be getting heavy, so I take it from her and loop my arm through the handle. Katniss hasn't lost that stern look, but her eyes tell a different story. She outlines my jaw while I trace her cheekbones and slide my pinky down her nose, counting the freckles. I make it to eight when we start moving again.

Voices grow thinner, more distant. Reaching a secluded spot, she jerks to a stop and whips around, staring at my lips. I dump the shoulder bag.

Our mouths connect. I swathe her tongue with my own, relishing her fingers as they drag through my hair. The friction of our lower bodies tugs a whimper from her that I silence by deepening the kiss, licking my way through her with lazy, measured strokes.

I break away and her head falls back, exposing her throat my lips. Accepting the invitation, I help myself to her, trailing the skin and tasting her sweat, down to the canyon between her collarbone and up again. I feel the muscles in her neck quiver as I reach the spongy little corner behind her lobe and suck the tender area. Her secretive mewls drive me crazy.

My own growl mists against her ear. I lift my head, eager for another kiss. I lean in...and out of nowhere, awareness sets her into a frenzy, vacuuming her moans. She wrenches out of my arms and leaps into the next row. The corn stalks slam against each other and spray leftover rain droplets on my face.

Mr. Everdeen appears around the corner. "Peeta. I was looking for you."

Katniss must have heard him coming. She knows every seed, every tint of light, on this farm. She can probably hear her family from a thousand paces.

I can't look at this guy. He'll accept whatever answer I give him because he trusts me. He trusts me the way he trusted my father, and I want to be worthy.

Not much chance of that when I'm standing here, talking to him with a concealed hard-on caused by his pride and joy.

I scrub my hand through my hair. "I got lost."

He chuckles. "We need you at the tractor. Something's stuck under the wheel and it's going to take strong bodies to help lift it. You can return to your work later. I've noticed how well you've taken to the fields. Especially the wheat."

"It's a baker thing," I say stupidly.

"Yes, I'm sure it makes you think of James."

It's the first time he's said my dad's name. It thwarts my plans to keep this topic at bay. I figure my silence will be taken as confirmation. The wheat field does make me think of Dad.

The breeze disturbs his long beard. I see the wheels turning, steering us into another heart-to-heart. Mr. Everdeen reminisces, "He would have liked this farm. Sunsets here are best in the fall. He taught me how to play chess, you know."

No, I didn't know. I didn't know my father knew how to play chess.

"What..." I thrust my hands into my pockets. "What was he like back then?"

"Like you. A shell at first. Tough. Short-tempered. When I spent rumspringa working at your family's bakery, he didn't want much to do with me. But one day, I defended him against a customer who claimed he sold them burnt bread. I was taught not to involve myself in other people's business, but I did it anyway. Maybe it was because rumspringa gave me permission to do so. And it felt right. I was standing up for a member of the family hosting me.

"From then on, we were friends. It turned out he was charming and funny. When something mattered to him, he held on. He was loyal. He admitted he couldn't wait to have sons and predicted that his youngest would be the wildest."

My mouth lifts into a grin. "He said that?"

"And that his youngest would be the most self-sacrificing and generous."

I glance down. My father must have meant his oldest or middle son. I don't feel remotely self-sacrificing or generous.

"We balanced one another well during that time," Mr. Everdeen says. "With him, I learned to appreciate joy for joy's sake. My patience and refusal to yell, even when I closed a drawer on my hand by accident, annoyed James. He would tease me about it. But he became calmer. Underneath it all, he longed to find hope in every situation. I like to think we taught each other many things. I like to think we taught each other to make the right choices. Especially when it came to others."

"He didn't marry the right choice," I mutter.

"Perhaps you will be different in that regard. You're capable."

He's wrong. In fact, his esteem sets me more on edge than every tantrum my mother has ever thrown.

"The strongest among us are those who forgive," Mr. Everdeen reflects.

"It's not that easy," I snap, remembering the blows to the head. The fractured rib. Especially the burn on my wrist. I'd been blocking Mom from getting to my oldest brother, Sam, when she did it.

Forget cuts and punches. Fire is a pain you never forget.

"The choices that build character aren't meant to be easy," Mr. Everdeen says.

"So what about that tractor?" I remind him.

He nods. "You're right. We should hurry, but don't think I haven't noticed how hard you've been working, without relying on praise. That's an honorable trait we take stake in here."

He stares at me. "People here warned me about you, Peeta. About having you around my daughters. Needless to say, I've let my faith and my relationship with your father guide my decisions. I see the redeemable parts of him in you. Which is why I haven't concerned myself over letting you interact with my girls. Besides, Katniss has rumspringa, and I think it's good for her to know you. She's never done anything serious for me to doubt her integrity. She's not easily influenced."

A bunch of thoughts involving Katniss's eager lips invade my mind.

"You've been helpful to her and Prim. You noticed their strained relationship and sought to neutralize it at dinner. You succeeded where I haven't. You're a good young man."

A tennis ball gets lodged in my throat. I don't know how to handle the compliment. Not when I've been kissing his daughter senseless. Not when I haven't considered him in all this time.

As he leads me away, I catch a pair of gray eyes hiding behind the stalks. The same emotion wracking me is smeared all over Katniss's face: guilt.

kpkpkpkpkp

I should have seen it coming. Katniss rewinds back to who she was before the storm. Before the motorcycle, in fact. Over the next two days, she keeps close to me in the field but then wiggles away when I try to touch her. She barely speaks.

It's pissing me off. Normally if a girl did this, I would shrug and move on, not follow her around.

Somehow, she manages to avoid being alone with me, sticking to areas of the farm where other people are working in plain sight of us. As if she thinks I'd grab her the second we were alone, pin her to the nearest surface, and devour her.

She's right. She's very right.

I know she feels bad about her father. I do, too. But I'm not an idiot. It's more than that.

Then I notice other stuff. The way older people shoot her uncertain glances and whisper to each other behind her back. At one point, as I'm watching this happen, I mindlessly throw a hay bale so hard at the guy piling them on a wagon that it slams into his stomach and knocks him to the ground. He doesn't believe me when I say it was an accident.

Mr. Everdeen wags his finger and tells me to concentrate. And I do. I concentrate on his daughter. Groups of girls surround her whenever they get a chance and smack their lips in her face. They tilt their heads, and from the way their mouths move, and the way she leans away from them, I figure they're asking her questions that make her uncomfortable.

As I'm lounging on the ground against a tree, using my Sunday off to cool my heels, I see a woman return with the Everdeens from church. She resembles Tall Gale, though older, maybe a family member. She stops Katniss on the porch and gives her some kind of speech.

I think of how many times Rye gave me speeches to stay out of trouble, warning me about what would happen if I didn't.

Whatever the woman says, it's the final trigger. Katniss's shoulders sag. She nods. The woman notices me on her way into the house and gives me this uppity glare. And just like that, I know why else Katniss has been giving me the silent treatment.

kpkpkpkpkp

Light from inside the cabin illuminates a smudge of dirt beneath her ear. She doesn't know it's there. I memorize the visual for a future sketch.

We watch each other from across the threshold. She's holding a portion of Shepherd's pie in a glass container. She doesn't let go of it, even though it's my dinner.

Delaying the inevitable, she indicates the rings on my fingers. "What are they?"

The one on my middle finger is just an intricate silver design, like the motif of a wrought-iron fence. The one on my index finger is a bird with an elongated neck.

"It's a mockingjay," I tell her. "It's a fictional symbol from a story about a rebellion. The leader was a huntress that her people likened to this bird."

"What happened to her?"

"They won. She lost people she loved. But in the end, she found love, too. With someone she never expected."

Katniss flinches. It's bitterly quiet this evening. You'd think a storm never happened a few nights ago.

My fingers choke the door frame. "Just say it."

"I've done something awful," she admits, then colors when she sees my answering expression.

I'm something awful. Time with me is something awful.

She tries again. "I didn't mean...this...this was a mistake."

"Am I really that wrong for you?"

"This isn't a criticism. Don't take it that way."

"Since that isn't an answer, I'll give you a different question. Did you like kissing me?"

Katniss looks away. I press my thumb to her stubborn chin and lift her head. "I told you once before not to break eye contact me. We were dancing, if I remember correctly."

"I can't betray Gale. If I do, what does that make me? What has my life taught me?"

"Does he make you laugh? Do you guys talk the way we talk? Does the world disappear when he touches you?"

"This is about what's right."

"And we're back to that clusterfuck of indirect responses, are we?"

She swallows. "This is my life. My people."

And they matter more. It's not just about Tall Gale, not completely. It's about going behind her dad's back. I don't like it anymore than she does. I'm not Amish. Yeah, this isn't just about me not being good enough, but the very thought of Mr. Everdeen, my father's friend, disapproving of me cuts through bone.

Again, she becomes aware of how I translated her words. "My father loves me the way my mother never did," she explains. "He means so much to me. As does Prim. They're safe and steady and forever. But with you, there is no such thing. You're leaving. If we continue, it will go nowhere. There's no point to this."

"And if it actually went somewhere? If you ended up with me?"

"That would be my right, but once I made that choice, I would be shunned."

I frown. I don't have a clue what she's talking about.

"I'd have to leave my community to be with you," she explains. "I'd have to leave my house. In other Amish Orders, it's different. You only get shunned if you've already made a commitment to the church and then break it. If you haven't promised yourself and choose an English life instead, you can still keep in contact with your family. It's not so very punishing." There's a jealous tinge to her voice when she says this. "But in my Order, it's different. The rules are not as lenient. It doesn't matter if I've made a commitment or not. If I chose you, I could never come back here or speak to my family again. There would be no contact allowed. Ever."

She considers this and sighs. "Technically, _shunned_ is too harsh a word for what it is here. It is not so much being shunned as being... _separated_ for good. Yet to me, it still feels like the same thing."

My blood boils. I don't care what her community thinks of me, but I don't want to screw her over. I hate thinking this is the consequence of choosing me. I hate to think of her never becoming what she wants. I hate her world and I admire her world. I hate how she just accepts all this. I hate how much I understand her.

But I'm still fuming at her choice. What did I expect? That she would drop everything for me after a couple of kisses? No, I don't think that far ahead, and I feel like a dumbass. Somewhere along the line, I'd wanted to become more important.

Her features become resigned. "Things have to stay the same."

"Is that what you really want? Really?"

"I'm not like you, Peeta Mellark. I take things seriously."

She's saying I don't. I thought she saw past that. I thought she saw me differently than everyone else.

She moves toward me, then holds herself back and shakes her head miserably. "I'm sorry...I mean..." Her voice hitches. "This is not coming out right."

It's fine. I get it. One thing's for sure. We're both determined to suck it up.

I reach out to catch her braid between my fingers and spare her the trouble of trying to edit herself. "So we stay away from each other. Simple enough."

She chews on her bottom lip. "Yes. It's simple."

We fall into a staring contest.

"Goodnight, Katniss," I say and shut the door before I do something stupid like scream at her.

Leaning against the wall, I flex the fingers that touched her hair and listen to silence on the other side. It's a while before her footsteps begin to fade. I wait until she's gone, knowing that she left my food on the front step. Knowing that tomorrow she'll go back to the more important business of dating Tall Gale.

Well, good. Whatever. It's better like this. I'm leaving soon. This would have happened anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: "I'm on Fire" by Bruce Springsteen.

_Good Girl_

Rumors had been flying around for a while. No one knows about Peeta Mellark and I kissing, but after seeing us in the fields talking so often, and after Gale's confrontation with him that one time, people had begun asking me questions.

Hanging out with English boys during rumspringa is one thing. It's a temporary allowance.

Choosing an English boy for life, for the future, is a whole different matter. Normally, I doubt people would suspect the friendship between an Amish girl and an outsider to be more serious than a simple rumspringa romp... _if_ that Amish girl weren't me.

Me. The girl who never steps out of line. The girl who had decided not to venture into the modern world. The girl who suddenly changed her tune and began working side-by-side with her young and handsome English guest.

Even Gale's mother approached me, though I'm certain he does not know about it. He prefers to handle his own business. But the scene he and Peeta caused in the field was enough to raise concern, and Hazel Hawthorne is a blunt woman.

She asked me if her son had anything to worry about. I told her no. I'm not sure if she believed me.

I'm not sure if _I_ believed me.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

I still feel her braid snug between my fingers.

I still see that dirt smudge beneath her ear.

I still taste her.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

Gale has been doubling his efforts to get affectionate. It feels unnatural. I'm suffocating.

Out of doors, he rests his hand against the small of my back. I want to shake him off. It's nicer when we're just talking about domestic things, friendly things. He's never been the touchy type before. It's not us.

He's not doing this to satisfy me. He's doing this because of Peeta Mellark. He's being boastful and not acting according to our faith.

I don't approve of making such an exhibition of our relationship. Especially now, in public, where blue eyes can see.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

I don't need this bullshit.

I don't need anyone but my brothers.

I don't care that I see her everyday with him.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

I think about marriage a lot more. I think about doing intimate things with Gale for the rest of my life, and I tuck myself further into a shaded corner of doubt.

It doesn't feel right, what I picture. I've always known it would happen, but now I can't imagine making love to him once, much less for decades. I cannot comprehend how people do it without love. How do they manage to pretend during such private times? How do they face that person, who doesn't even know the truth, the next morning?

Am I being a good Amish girl by marrying him? Or am I committing a worse sin by pledging myself despite the lingering uncertainty? Is it a sin to live a lie? Where does that leave my true feelings?

I am not uncertain when I remember Peeta Mellark's kiss.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

Motherfucker.

My iPod speaker runs out of battery juice.

And then my iPod runs out of juice, too.

I shouldn't have put that song we danced to on loop. After eight hours of wheat and corn and wood and horse crap, there's only silence and sketching.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

As I slice potatoes and boil tea, I hear him in the bathroom. He's using our shower.

We're the only ones in the house. This doesn't happen often. This evening is an exception.

I remember the day I caught him washing up. I remember the angle of his body and wonder if that's how he's standing now. His pale, solid frame is...

The kettle shrieks. Steam rockets from the top. I jump and accidentally cut my finger with the paring knife. After shutting off the kettle, I examine the tiny wound. It stings but isn't deep.

I go back to thinking of him in the shower and what part of his body he might be cleaning...caressing.

I draw my cut finger into my mouth and suck.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

I crane my neck backward into the hot stream. My cock twitches as if something invisible is tugging on it.

She's downstairs. No one else is in the house but us.

She walked in on me once. She doesn't know that I know.

I twist the knobs to change the temperature from scalding to frigid. I need to calm the hell down.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

Gale and I sit next to one another at church. Then we spend Sunday evening with our friends. Delly and Madge are full of rumspringa endorphins.

On my doorstep later, I kiss Gale goodnight, searching for passion and warmth and joy and beauty.

I'm disappointed.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

She catches me by the wood pile. I've stopped making sculptures of the logs because it takes patience that I frankly don't have.

She hands me a pair of gloves so my palms won't blister any more. I could have used these fucking gloves six weeks ago.

She starts to walk away when I make an offhand comment about Gale's wandering fingers.

She halts with her back to me. "He's Amish. You're not."

Practical as ever. But I live for the moment. Sometimes, so does she.

I saunter up behind her, my shirt brushing the fabric of her dress. At this point, I'm done. So done. I gather up everything I've learned about desire and lust and do my best to crush her. I let it all out, no holds barred, because that's who I am. "The truth is," I murmur. "I want you, and you want me."

She tenses but listens, so I take advantage. "I'm burning for you, and you're burning for me, and that's not going to change. If I'm honest with myself, I've wanted you since I first saw you standing in front of your house. My mouth wanted you. My fingers wanted you. When you came to my cabin the first night, I wanted to tear your clothes off. I wanted to spread you and cover you and claim you. I still do."

She gasps as I swipe her braid over her shoulder. "Do you know what it feels like to make love?" I run my ringed index finger down her profile. "Do you know what it feels like to come so hard your entire body lifts off the mattress? It's lovely, Katniss."

My heart pumps against her body as I continue. "I want to kneel. I want to roll your stockings down and disappear beneath your skirt. When I'm there, I'll part your thighs, and I'll trace the glistening slit between your folds with the pad of my tongue. I'll lap up every moist drop of you. And then I'll find that delicate pebble at the center of you and graze it, tease it until it's swollen and ready. And then I'll draw that pebble fully into the wet heat of my mouth.

"I'll listen to you sobbing sweetly above me, and I'll increase the pressure, more and more, and I won't let you go until I've heard you cry my name a dozen times. And while you're still trembling, I'll wrap your legs around me, so tight around me, and I'll move inside you slowly. Until we're both a broken, panting mess. And then..." I bring my lips to her ear and whisper the rest.

From this angle, I see her gray eyes vanish into the back of her head. She breaks away and marches back to her house, fingers rubbing her temples because I've given her a headache.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

In bed, I think of what he said.

Beneath the quilt, I think of everything he said.

In the dark, I close my eyes and _see_ everything he said.

As my fingers drift down my stomach, I arch my back and moan.

I realize how grateful I am that I don't share a room with my sister.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

I'm going crazy.

I'm losing a fistful of sleep.

I'm riding the bike further at night, but she's not with me.

I'm taking it out on the wheat bales, but Mr. Everdeen tells me to take a break.

I'm pumping myself till my fingers can't bend, but I still don't feel the precious release.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

It becomes clear that Gale's feelings for me are deeper than I ever knew.

I try hard to reciprocate and fail.

This isn't fair to him. It just isn't.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

I miss her righteous little statements.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

I miss his jokes.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

Mr. Everdeen likes me.

He tells me about farm life and the day he met my father. He tells me I'm so much like Dad and looks at me with confidence.

I understand now why my father remembered him for so many years.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

At dinner, I yearn to ask my father what he and Peeta Mellark talk about.

I shovel food into my mouth.

I don't care if I choke.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

Living this close to her is a curse. My theory is proven when I take a walk in the middle of the night and pass her kitchen window. And see her.

She's wearing a white nightgown that outlines her curves and exposes her arms. Blue light from the darkness bathes the delicate architecture of her back. She's usually so covered up. I've never seen this much skin. I'm breathless.

I watch her pour a glass of water and bring it to the window. I watch her lean against the frame and stare up at the sky. At the stars that burn endlessly but never connect.

I watch her throat dance as she drinks.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

Beyond the window, I notice movement outside. A figure shifts in the woods before the view goes still again. Perhaps it was an animal.

I peer outside, but it's difficult to make out certain shadows. Yet I feel the weight of being watched. I feel the weight of longing. I search for him and then shake myself. He's not out there at this time of night.

The stars buzz above the trees, so relentless, so immobile. I take a deep drink of the water. I pucker my mouth and let it linger on the glass. I lick a drop off the rim.

I feel foolish for pretending he can see me.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

It's almost time to go home.

I think of Rye and Sam and Finnick.

I want the hell off this farm.

I should be bouncing off the walls.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

Harvest and housework and prayer keep me company.

For some reason, Prim is being nice to me. It makes my father smile.

Everything is the way it should be, as it always was, as I've always wanted it.

I should be happy.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Bad Boy_

It's not the same.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

It's not the same.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	10. Chapter 10

_Good Girl_

Gale stops the buggy half-way back to my house. He's been acting strange ever since I set foot in his living room two hours ago to work on a quilt with his mother.

He wipes his palms on his thighs. He's quiet. It's usually me who doesn't speak much, so I'm on edge. I sense something, or maybe he senses something in me and is purely reacting to it.

Pragmatic unions abound in our Order. I had no idea that he saw me as more than a dear friend. I want to ask how long this has been going on, but that would be an awful thing to do considering my heart isn't in this buggy right now.

A regretful aroma fills the air tonight: overripe pumpkin and something like cough syrup. The leaves that were once rich and colorful a few weeks ago have dried up and fallen to the ground. We stare at the view of my house in the distance. But I can't help remembering a different vista. A vaster one. So sweet in my memory.

I miss that hill Peeta Mellark took me to. I miss him. I feel horrible and unworthy missing him while I'm in this carriage. We've barely spoken for over two weeks, except for that moment by the wood pile that still tempts me.

Other than that, I've caught him a number of times watching me. And he's caught me.

October has flooded into November and somehow landed on this very night. His last one with us. He's leaving tomorrow.

Gale knows what night it is. To my surprise, I don't see relief mirrored in his rugged features.

My hands are camped in my lap. It's clear that this isn't a romantic interlude. He has something on his mind. I'm not sure I can take it tonight. Besides, I have to get home in time to cook supper.

He steals one of my hands and cradles it. I sit up straighter.

"I want to marry you," he begins.

I force a chuckle. "I think we have that part covered."

"No. I mean now."

My laughter dies. My body and everything that comes with it is strung like a bow. The unsavory scent of the landscape thickens. The buggy's seat becomes hard and uncomfortable.

At first, I'm too shocked to respond. What does he mean _now_?

"I'm seventeen," I blurt out. "We're seventeen."

Gale groans, wipes his palms over his thighs again. "Alright. I didn't mean this minute. I meant, let's not wait two years. Let's do it sooner. When we're eighteen."

That's in only five months for both of us. In the spring.

My head begins to pound to the point of pain. I feel the weight of shackles tying me down, strapping me to the reality of my choice. "Why?" I ask.

"Come on, Katniss. There's no reason to hold off. We're right together. We're partners."

Yes, we are. Gale and I can talk about practical things. But he likes being in charge, he likes being a protector, he likes being dominant. We are both so similar, too similar. We both want to be fire. However, in his universe, in our marriage, only one person will get that privilege. It won't be me.

He's so riled up, he's hopping in his seat, rocking the buggy with his movements. He's making the horse nervous. "It's okay for us to change our plans."

"I know—"

"Our parents won't mind."

"Gale, slow down—"

"So there's nothing stopping us."

"But why so soon? Why..." I trail off, cracking the code etched across his desperate face. He thinks I'm going to leave. He thinks I'm going to run off with Peeta Mellark tomorrow. He anticipates that Peeta Mellark will make me an offer and that I will say yes.

Gale's trying to prevent it. Though he should know I could never leave my family. He should know I wouldn't make that decision rashly, despite how swept up I've been in that boy's arms, despite how easily my resolve has collapsed in his presence, despite how often I've yearned for his touch in the dark. By my kitchen window. Swallowing a glass of water.

Yet Gale's proposition proves he's not sure who I am anymore. Which is my fault.

The truth about my future becomes devastatingly clear and causes my chest to constrict. I can't string him along and waste his heart. He has a right to be loved back. I'm not the girl for him.

I question my sanity even as I say the words. "I can't."

He sighs. "At least think about it. For me."

I have thought about this. I've prayed in my room and at church. I've meditated on it. I've agonized for weeks. I _have_ thought about it.

I stare at my hand in his. "I can't marry you."

My hushed words get caught in the breeze. Gale makes a wounded but angry but insulted but outraged sound. He bears an _I knew it_ expression. I wonder how much he's read into my actions these past two months. Maybe he saw things clearer than I did.

"You're choosing him over us," he accuses.

"No. I'm choosing _me_ ," I respond. Yet from the way he festers, he doesn't understand, so I struggle to explain. "I want to love who I marry."

"Katniss," he says, exasperated, "that will come. I'll make it happen."

"That's not a chance I can take. Or one you should take."

"Years of friendship are reduced just like that?" He thrusts his hands through his hair and latches onto a different point, gesturing between us. "Everyone expects this."

That's true. Everyone we know expects us to be together. Indeed, I've always expected it. I've lived by routine and predictability. But if those were the only reasons to promise myself to my friend, it would be wrong. For me, it would be wrong. I don't think of marriage the same way anymore.

"Katniss, his world isn't for you. Don't get caught up. You can't ever come back," he protests, his voice sounding like a wrung-out towel.

"This isn't about him. I'm not leaving my home."

That makes him feel infinitely better. "Then who better to marry than me? I'm the closest thing to love you'll find here. Aren't I?"

I can't imagine feeling anything greater than fondness for Gale, not enough to test the waters by taking a vow for my whole life.

"Maybe someday," I say. "Until then, I can't promise you. I can't be with you."

"You're breaking up with me, too," he says, again unsurprised.

My throat burns. If it would soothe us both, I would wrap him in my arms, but tenderness is not the way to placate Gale. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

"You'd rather risk being alone forever? Like Old Sae?" He detects the answer in my eyes and collapses against the buggy's bench. His shoulders sag, and he shakes his head. "I won't push you. I never have and never will."

We don't speak. He tugs on his collar and mumbles that I shouldn't be late for supper, snapping the horse to attention. As we drive to my house, I think about what he said. He's right. Sae's an old maid. I might become one as well if I never find what I need. People will look down on me. People will feel sorry for me.

But at least I'll be true to myself. And everyone I know.

kpkpkpkpkp

The flames in the hearth crackle as I enter the house. I hang my coat on the wall peg and note the quiet. No one's downstairs. My father must be washing up, and Prim must be avoiding having to do anything remotely useful in terms of food preparation.

With a heavy heart, I amble toward the kitchen, thinking of Gale's dejected profile as we muttered a cordial goodnight. I've never felt so awful or directionless. I mourn his absence, terrified of losing his friendship, too. I would be lying to myself if I ignored the small part of me that wants to undo the break-up, just to make him happy. Because I do care for him. Because being alone scares me. Because I don't want our families to be disappointed. And because it was nice being with him.

It's still not enough. I don't know what would be enough, but I have to allow myself to find out. And I hope he will be okay.

I decide not to say anything to my father tonight. I'll tell him and Prim in the morning, once I've had rest and time to string together my reasons, because myy father will certainly need reasons. Solid ones. Kind and tender as he is, he believes in a steady, consistent mind.

My eyes narrow when I detect the faint scent of something baking in the kitchen. I wend my way around furniture and head toward the sound of heavy footsteps.

At the kitchen's threshold, my heels grind to a halt. His toned physique fills the space, which looks infinitely smaller with him in it. First, I take in the blond hair. Then his hips swaying from one end of the counter to the other. When he rotates toward me, our gazes collide. Peeta Mellark is in our kitchen.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, far too aggressively.

"Your dad invited me," he says noncommittally.

Of course. It's his last night. I should have anticipated this.

The sight of him does violent things to my state of mind. Longing and excitement and despair converge, and it's an importune time for any of these feelings, as they compete with the moment of silence I'd hoped to bestow on my break-up.

My options are to wither beneath his emotionless gaze or melt from the sight of his closed mouth. Not pleased with either option, I hike up my chin.

He disregards me entirely and turns back to his chore. Physically, he looks out of place here, in head-to-toe black, rings and tattoos and hard jaw and all. Yet his fluid movements suggest he's right at home.

He's baked a loaf of dark bread with nuts. He tosses a rag over his shoulder and lets it hang there while he saws through the crust with a serrated knife, the tendons under his fair skin straining and his forearms flexing. I will have to endure the sight of him while I cook dinner.

Until I see that he's already taken care of that, too. A bowl of mashed potatoes and a medley of roasted vegetables—parsnips, carrots, and yams—garnished with golden raisins wait on the counter. I'm taken aback. He did this? He _knows_ how to do this?

I realize how much more there is to learn about him, and for me to reveal of myself, and that pains me to no end. Time has run out for us.

I can't seem to do anything right tonight, because instead of complimenting him, I scrutinize the dish. "Did you add pepper?"

"Do I look like an oaf to you?" he remarks.

"What about honey?"

"I'm allergic."

"Oh," I say.

His grip on the bread knife tightens as I step further into the room. My skirt brushes his jeans as I pass behind him. I collect plates from a cupboard and stack them on the counter. He leans over, his arm stretching in front of me to grab a bread basket.

As we work in silence, I feel cheated out of something I can't name. So I brace my hands on the counter, hoping to express appreciation for him making supper. Unfortunately, I've lost the ability to draw out my gratitude beyond two words. "Thank you."

Peeta Mellark stops cutting. He sets the knife down and flattens his palms on the smooth surface right beside mine. We keep our eyes directed on the counter. Our pinkies almost touch. I feel a hyperawareness of his fingers twitching.

"Katniss?" We jerk toward the doorway where Prim is standing, watching us.

I offer her the dinner plates to set the table with. Her gaze skips between us before accepting the dishes. For once, she doesn't give me a hard time about a simple chore.

I keep my head down throughout supper, even though I'm aware it's ungracious, even though my father surely notices and will question my sedate behavior later. He and our guest talk about the past two months, the farm, and the harvest.

My family compliments the food. Especially the bread, which is warm and dense and delicious. Peeta Mellark talks about grain and the techniques his father taught him. He does this all with a detached flair, as if it's no big deal.

I see through the mask. He's pleased that the bread turned out so good.

My father issues some parting words, commending our guest's hard work, which causes Peeta Mellark to stab at his food. The praise makes him uncomfortable. Apparently, I'm the only one at the table who notices this.

Peeta Mellark sits in the chair adjacent to mine. Every time he shifts, I feel it. If I look up, everyone will see the effect it has on me. I'm afraid I will give myself away. Gale's broken heart rests on my shoulders, coupled with the lingering spicy scent of the boy to my right, spreading a flame through me.

My lack of participation creates a void that my father attempts to fill. "You must be looking forward to seeing your brothers," he says, wisely omitting the mother from that statement.

"I'm jazzed," Peeta Mellark says.

Yes. He must be oh so happy to be rid of us soon. He must be counting the hours. He'll go back to his brothers and other girls. Girls with tattoos of their own and piercings and whatever else. They'll wear tight clothes. They'll be experienced, maybe familiar with his body already. They'll be happy to see him. They'll show him how happy they are.

I plow mashed potatoes into my mouth, which burn my tongue.

"We'll miss you," Prim says. "Why can't you be Amish and stay?"

Peeta Mellark smirks to himself in amusement.

"Prim, pass the vegetables," I demand.

Not ask. Demand.

My father furrows his brow at me, then half-scolds, half chuckles at Prim. "Young lady. That's too forward."

"Well, why not? Katniss is so much easier to be around with Peeta here."

"Pass the vegetables," I repeat louder.

"Whatever it is you're doing to her, I wish you'd keep doing it."

The comment gongs across the table. The scream begins in my lower back but doesn't find purchase on my lips. I'm suspicious of my sister's intention. Was the remark meant to test him and me, or was it an innocent blunder? From the corner of my eye, I see that she's focused on her meal, nonchalant, no hint of maliciousness.

My father is remarkably ignorant, and I adore him for it, as he addresses Peeta Mellark. "We all have our own paths. I'd like to think you've learned a little from us, and we you."

Prim pipes in, "Yes. Tell us what you've learned from each of us. Start with Katniss."

"I said, pass the vegetables!"

All heads turn toward me. Peeta Mellark leans his elbow casually on the table, fingers resting over his mouth in contemplation as he studies me.

"Katniss," my father bristles. "Apologize."

I bite my lip so hard, it's going to bleed. Mortification rings in my voice. "Prim, I'm sorry."

In answer, my dazed little sister hands me the vegetables. For the first time in ages, she shows mercy and doesn't talk back. She regards me with something akin to reverence.

"And to our guest," my father instructs.

My mouth opens.

"S' okay."

At the sound of Peeta Mellark's voice, I find those blue irises flaring in my direction. The fire inside me grows. I reach for my water glass and gulp down the contents. He reaches for his own glass at the same time.

My father wavers. Our guest has undermined his authority but also demonstrated forgiveness. Because it's the last night, my father chooses to disregard my outburst for the rest of the meal. Afterward, he volunteers me to walk Peeta Mellark home, declaring it's the least I can do for ruining things.

The offer is refused. "I know my way home," Peeta Mellark says on his way out the door. He tosses me an intense gaze and then leaves.

My father lectures me the minute we're alone. Prim gathers the dirty dishes and awards me with a curious look.

Before bed, I spend an extended time praying, my fingers wound tightly, my knees digging into the wood floor. It doesn't help, because when I try to sleep, I end up rocking back and forth for an hour, then kicking the quilt off the bed. I get dressed and tiptoe out of the house. I need to atone for my behavior.

The cabin's light is still on, as I knew it would be. He's a night owl, for certain.

Forcing myself not to turn back, I gather my wits and knock.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: "Poison & Wine" by The Civil Wars.

_Good Girl_

Peeta Mellark answers before I'm done knocking. His body eclipses the orange gleam radiating from inside the cabin. Loose sweatpants ride his narrow hips and a sleeveless tank clings to his torso. "Isn't it past your bedtime, Amish girl?" he asks.

I will miss that crackling voice. It's reserved but without the tinge of bitterness I'd expected. He's being polite. I want more from him, even though I shouldn't.

The breath that I draw begins in my navel and rises up through me, the way a new emotion might. "May I come in?"

He quirks an eyebrow. "I thought you weren't talking to me."

"This won't take long."

"Then the front stoop should do fine."

"I humbly disagree. The birds are eavesdropping."

"Daddy Everdeen sent you to apologize, didn't he?"

I reign in my annoyance. "I came willingly."

"I'm flattered."

"If you would only, this once, cease your roguish sarcasm and let me in before the sun rises."

Impressed, he steps to the side. I struggle to get past him without quivering from his leather and spice scent, a combination of earthy and sweet. It pains me beyond belief when I see the duffel bag already packed and stationed on the floor beneath his wall mural.

He closes the door but stays near it, holding onto the knob. The stove fills the place with the scent of burning wood as flames lick the air impatiently. It's the only source of light in the room. I guess he was headed to bed, after all, when I arrived.

I school myself to act dignified. "I must apologize for messing up dinner tonight. I was upset."

"No shit."

"I broke up with Gale."

His features twitch and then smooth out again into impassiveness. He has such a hard jawline for such a boyish face.

"Maybe I was a little cranky," I add.

Peeta Mellark glances at the floor. "How are you now?"

How to answer that? I'm still upset. I'm worse than upset. My heart has been trampled upon by something more monstrous, and less easy to operate, than a tractor.

My hands fall into my apron pockets. "It hurts."

I'm not talking about Gale. I'm talking about now. Right here. Right now. I don't want things to end this way. I don't want them to end at all, I realize. I dread letting this boy go. I dread entering this cabin tomorrow and finding it empty. I care too much.

"Any other reason for your mood?" he inquires. The curtain of indifference slips, revealing a more vulnerable desire. It's so unusual coming from him that it terrifies me.

"No," I lie.

Why can't I tell him the truth? What _is_ the truth? Why can't I stay away?

The side of his mouth twists upward in self-mockery, as if telling himself he should have known better. I don't want him to think that way about me, that I'm the predictably stoic and dispassionate girl he once accused me of being, that his departure doesn't matter.

"Well. Thanks for the apology," he says. "Then we're done here."

I stop him from opening the door and kicking me out. "Wait. I-I'm not done."

"You need someone to talk to about Gale?"

I'm amazed he would even tolerate it if I'd come to him for that reason. His exterior is far too calm and calculating to trust. He's pretending what we have is only skin deep, when truly it reaches further depths, beyond our physical selves. Beyond his city and my countryside. Beyond the wheat fields and beyond our clandestine trips on his motorcycle. Beyond other people, especially Gale.

My voice is dry as straw and just as thin. "To marry someone, they have to mean everything to me, not simply be a dependable friend and share the same faith. I couldn't devote myself to him that way. But I'm fine about that."

He crosses his arms. "I don't doubt it. You usually are fine during catastrophes," he remarks in spite of the admiration that I detect in his words.

"Not each time," I answer. "But in this case, yes. I'll survive without him."

"So I'm curious. What can't you survive without, Katniss?"

"I didn't come here for you to dissect me. I'm bothered enough already."

"By what? What's the problem?" he asks casually.

"Can I sleep here tonight?"

Though I look down when I say it, the plea comes out naturally, as do most things with him. This moment is what I crave. It's only happened once, but the memory of those arms around me is too rich. I have one more night to feel them before he leaves me. I need this one last night.

Peeta Mellark's tone is mild, which means it's nearing the edge of a more volcanic reaction. "I thought you said you'll be fine."

My head snaps up. I lose my grasp on the meaning of _dignified_. "This isn't about Gale. It's about you!"

"How is this about me? It's never been that way before. I'm the last thing you consider."

"You do not believe that."

"I'm just a deviant intruder in this farm. A non-Amish fuck-up who breaks laws and doesn't fit in. But oh, what a dangerous and exciting distraction for you. The perfect excuse to call it quits with Tall and Mighty Gale."

The comment knives through me. "You were more than that."

His features clench. " _Were_ , huh?"

"I mean, you are. You...you're..." I wring my hands. "Do not depreciate yourself like this. And do not insult the way I see you."

"I have no idea how you see me."

"You always have an idea! That's how you break me!"

He explodes, throwing his arms out to the sides. "What the hell do you need from me? Huh? I've made it abundantly clear how much I want you, and you've made it clear that it can't happen. I get it. I'm not trying to be an asshole. I'm doing what you asked and backing off. So just..." He rakes his fingers through his hair. "What, Katniss? Why are you here?"

"Please," I whisper, mortified by my rickety tone.

I listen to the fire humming. I listen to his steady breaths reaching me from across the room. I listen to him sigh. I listen to the sound of him locking the door. I listen to our footsteps when he takes my hand, his thumbing gently massaging my skin, and guides me to the bed. I listen to our inhales and exhales converging into a single, weightless, caressing sound. Which extends into one long slumber.

And in the morning, I wake up and listen to his heartbeat. I press my ear to that magnificent chest, counting every thump, wishing they could all be mine. The mattress winces as I lean up and study his sleeping face. Always unapologetically beautiful.

It's around dawn. I can tell from the weak light outside. As he wakes up, a groan rumbles from the back of his throat. The way he puckers his lips, then blinks up at me, is too cute for his own good. "Still here?" he asks, though there's a teasing lilt to his words.

"Still here," I say, because I'm not the one who's leaving. We have a couple of hours before that policeman picks him up, and I have an idea. But I hesitate.

He can tell. "What's up?"

"Will you take me somewhere?"

We get on the motorcycle and ride back to the hill. It's a terrifically chilly, eye-popping drive, but it's warmer once we get there. As we sit in our usual spot together, Peeta Mellark unpacks the blanket we brought and wraps it around me, refusing even an inch for himself.

This early and from this far away, the city looks faded. Like the concept of a place rather than a real one. Or like an aged photo that has been forgotten.

"Show me where you live," I say. "So if I ever make it back here, I'll know where to look."

He points out the Mellark bakery in a gap between the skyscrapers. "My brother, Sam, lives in an apartment above the bakery. I'll be staying with him, and I'm gonna try and get Rye to stay with us, too. I don't want him alone with Mom. She basically disowned me when I got arrested again."

I'm relieved he won't be returning to her, but it must wound him to know the person who should care for him most in this world doesn't. The longer we sit here, the more devastated I become. Suddenly, I don't want to talk about the life waiting for him on the other side of this hill.

Peeta Mellark stares at the distance. "Last night, Prim asked me what I learned from you."

I remember. That was the moment I lost my temper at the dinner table.

He twists his mockingjay ring around his finger. "I learned you have this beauty mark hidden behind your ear, and when you touch it, it means you're nervous. I learned that when you laugh, it lasts exactly three seconds—no more, no less. I learned that you sleep soundly when you lay on your side, and you kick off the covers when you sleep on your back, and you mumble when you sleep on your stomach. I learned that you love to eat, but more than that, you love to _gather_ what you eat. I learned that you're selfless and fiery and brave and a real pain in the ass. And you're completely irreplaceable."

My throat coils into a small knot.

"I learned that there is one person I will never fool, because she sees right through me every single time. I like that about her."

He waits for me to respond. The backs of my eyes mist. I'm shattering. He's shattering me. Yet I'm unable to do him the honor of answering. How could anything I say measure up?

His laughter is dry. "I've also learned that your flair for parting words is fucking profound."

Before I can stop him, he stands and holds out his hand. "We gotta get back."

I take it and rise. I make it a short distance before I stop. I watch him walk back to the motorcycle, where he bends his head to check something. Desperation rears its head because this is it, and I can't find one thing to say. One way to make him understand.

_Please, don't go._

It's an irrational request. He can't stay, but I want to beg him anyway. Not to leave. Not yet.

I know what I want. I can't imagine feeling anything stronger, or more right, than what comes to me right now.

"Peeta Mellark," I say.

"Get on the bike, Katniss."

"I would very much like to...to give myself to you."

Slowly, the back of his head lifts. My pulse stutters to a complete stop and then picks up again as I wait for his answer. When he turns, the untamed look on his face causes a flurry of sensations to spiral down my body and unite in one very sensitive place. He heard me loud and clear, but he doesn't move a muscle.

I do. Nervously, I untie the kapp from my head and drop it to the ground. It feels okay to do this, so I keep going. I let him watch. This is something special, and I want to pay tribute to it as much as possible before I lose all sense of cohesion.

I unwind my braid, letting it fall in waves over my shoulders. Glancing down, I attempt to unfasten my blouse, but I'm trembling so badly that I can't manage.

A warm hand settles over my own, stopping me. Somehow, he made it across the grass without me hearing. I force myself to look up. He's studying my face. Questioning.

Embarrassed, I sigh. "The snaps aren't—"

"Shh."

I gaze into blue eyes that have darkened. We pause. A needy sound rises from the back of my throat. And something unlocks.

He hoists me into his arms so desperately that I grasp his shoulders for balance. Our mouths collide. It's been so long. Too long.

His tongue splits my lips apart and searches for mine. When I offer it to him, he shudders, and all our restraint, all our resolve from these past weeks, falls to pieces. The kiss is feverish. Every flick of his tongue produces a gentle throb in my groin. The effect of it yokes from between my thighs.

His fingers grip my waist as he walks me backward toward the blanket. We sink to the ground. The wool blanket grazes the curves of my knees. The world spins as he twists and lays me down, the movement forcing our mouths to separate.

He pulls off my shoes, then slips his fingers under my skirt and finds the tops of my stockings, half way up my thighs. One by one, he rolls them past my calves, just the way he once said he would, then tosses them to the side. Without looking away from me, he runs his fingers across my bare skin, and I buck against his touch.

My billowy little shorts are next. His expression turns husky as he loosens the drawstring ties. They unfurl against my stomach and slide down my legs, beyond my curling toes. He links his hands around my ankles and pushes them until my knees bend and my legs spread.

Now, he breaks eye contact. His gaze travels into the gap of my skirt where I'm exposed. A thrill shoots up my spine as I lay bare for his heavy-lidded inspection. He licks the bows of his lips. "You're soaked. I can see it from here."

With that, his head disappears beneath the garment. He hitches my legs over his shoulders and glides his arms under my waist, lifting my pelvis to receive him. I brace myself, my center twitching in anticipation. At first, he goes still, and I fret that I've done something wrong.

Then it happens. The pad of his tongue swathes along the wet track between my thighs. It's a patient, sensual introduction that has me arching my back instantly. A moan stirs from my mouth. He moans back in response and starts to lap at me greedily. It urges me on, and the noises multiply.

He finds that nugget of nerves and sucks it into his plush mouth. And I die. Over and over. I lose control. I'm loud. I'm grabbing fistfuls of grass and tossing my head from side to side.

Still, he persists. He sucks harder. His moans thicken as though he's been thirsty for decades. He increases the pressure until that nugget is vibrating like a leaf against his relentless mouth.

"Peeta," I cry out, so loud and so real.

He gives me one more tender lick, then reappears, a raw expression contorting his face. It is a delightful chore, having to catch my breath. I'm still recovering when he gathers me up onto his lap and brushes his lips against mine in a sweet kiss.

Breaking away, he pops the snaps of my blouse and drags it over my head, then cracks the closure of my bra and slides it off. His palms run over my breasts, thumbing the nipples until they ripen to a dark pink hue. I curl into him, marveling at how well we fit together. Those calloused hands travel over my skin and cradle my head as it falls back, allowing him to graze the column of my throat with his mouth.

This is passion, I realize. This is what passion does to you.

We grow impatient again. Peeta crosses his arms and yanks his shirt off, allowing me to do what I've been yearning to since the moment I first saw his naked chest in the cabin. My fingers span his broad shoulders, along his strong arms, and sweep across his abdomen.

When I reach the swell in his pants, he makes a strangled noise. We undo his zipper and ease down the waistband. Just enough. The solid heat of him fills my hand. Our foreheads press together as we gaze down at me holding his erection, stroking him, our breaths mingling. His eyes pinch shut. He falls apart so beautifully, reduced to whimpers, under the rhythm of my hand.

I want to keep going, but once the noises he makes begin to escalate and his torso tenses up, Peeta bats away my fingers in hurry. He lowers me to the blanket once more, where he rids me of the skirt, his eyes raking over my bare form. He lavishes me with his touch and kisses, taking the time to discover the arch of my foot, the knobs of my knees, the curve in my waist, the sensitive spot where my arms bend, and the hardened buds that ache for his fingers. He turns me into a shrine.

And then my own gaze rakes over him as he strips for me. His wide build tapers at the waist. He's hard and smooth everywhere.

_Everywhere._

He extracts a condom from the wallet in his jeans pocket. I gasp at the sound of the tear.

My cheeks flush as I hold out my arms to him. "Peeta."

When he lowers himself and nestles his hips between my thighs, I crush him to me, savoring the contact of our bare chests, our stomachs rubbing against each other. My legs ribbon around him and link beneath his backside.

He props himself on his elbows. "I'll go slow. I'm going to make sure you like every second of this."

I know he will. I trust him.

His tip pries me open. My outer walls flutter apart like a curtain as the head of his erection slips past them. Then his hardness retreats as he arches his lower back. Then returns as his hips revolve forward again. Probbing me. Ebbing away. Probing me again.

I expand for him. The burn heightens. The teasing pattern continues until I'm writhing. My hands cup his backside, spurring him on, entreating.

"My...God..." he mumbles hoarsely.

I need to beg him. I can't take it. It's...just...so...

Peeta frames my face in his hands. And his length grinds all the way into me. And we groan, the throaty sounds rocketing to the sky.

It doesn't hurt like I'd expected it to. What difficulties I do have vanish under his experienced movements. His access to my body is deep and penetrating. His rhythm is agonizingly controlled. We melt, our hips rolling together.

He buries his face in the side of my neck, and I can't believe that I almost gave up this chance. I cannot believe I almost made the choice to share this with another forever, because there's no way it would have meant as much, or felt this heavenly. I want to freeze this moment and live in it.

_Please, don't go._

There it is again. That same, continuous, impossible thought. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. They land on his profile, causing him to lift his head, his expression turning ragged when he sees that I'm crying.

"No," he says. "Don't be sad." He kisses away my tears. The next words are affectionate and fierce and _him_. "Just fuck me. Enjoy my body. Mold me inside you."

Hearing that makes me crumble. Our hungry, mournful gazes fasten together. I show him that I'm his. I let go of it all, and he feels my insides welcome him.

"Yes," Peeta sighs in approval.

He pins my arms above my head. His upper body rises so that he has a better view of me beneath him. The shift in position changes the direction of his languid thrusts, hitting a spot that makes my legs unlock and fall open, landing at his sides where they ride his snapping hips.

I sob from the pleasure. I need more. So much more.

"Almost there, baby," he says.

His lower lip hangs open for me to taste. Emboldened, I pull it into my mouth, making him hiss. My life narrows to the spot where we're joined, whirling so fast that I go blind to everything but those harsh blue irises. Our tempo becomes erratic.

"Now," he gasps.

I burst. So does he. We unleash in one long, collective, resonating moan. I feel him convulse and spill into me. I memorize what it looks like when he climaxes. His jaw goes slack. His eyelids flutter. We become exactly what he once promised: a broken, panting mess.

Our damp foreheads collapse against each other. His bangs tickle my skin. He remains between my legs, still inside me, with no intention of moving. We stay like this, staring, smiling. Peeta is adorable when he smiles.

I'm comfortable here. I'm happy, even as reality pricks its way into my head. We seal this moment with an exhausted kiss. One of my hands settles on his back while the other wanders over the dandelion tattoo.

I whisper, "We can't love each other."

He whispers, "I know."

"We shouldn't."

"I know."

"So let's say that we don't. We don't love each other. Say it with me," I implore. "Please."

Peeta runs his finger over my mouth. "I...I don't love you."

"I don't...love you, either," I promise.

Easier words. Safer words.

"That's how I'll always feel." He pecks my nose. "Always."

"Always," I reply.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	12. Chapter 12

_Bad Boy_

Naked and covered in the blanket, we sit together and stare at the view. Katniss's back is flush against my chest, her head resting on my shoulder while my bent knees and arms cradle her body. I don't know what the best moment of my life is supposed to feel like, but this comes pretty close.

My hands sneak beneath her arms to cup her breasts. "If I wasn't leaving, would this have happened?"

"Yes," she says. "I needed to know that life can be more than what others put in front of me. That I can find out. And only you can give me that." She twists her head to nuzzle my face. "This always would have happened."

I take her chin and press our lips together. This position reminds me of the first time I tasted her.

I make her come for a third time when my hand disappears between her legs and stirs two fingers into her. She reaches back to clasp my neck. Her arousal blooms and pools over my palm. I groan just listening to her smolder.

Between getting dressed and getting on the bike, we prolong our stay. We touch. We kiss. Her mouth is deliciously swollen because of me. Her gray eyes radiate with life.

As I drive us back, her hands grip my thighs, moving close to my groin and caressing me through my jeans. If she keeps this up, she's going to get us into an accident. It could be a combination of a few things: the afterglow, the bike thundering beneath us, time ticking by. Really, I don't give a shit what it is. Katniss has become unleashed. And it's sexy as hell.

As soon as I park the bike near the farm and cut the engine, she scrambles off the seat and climbs onto my lap, straddling me and claiming my mouth. I respond immediately. My hands cradle her ass and crush her to me, the rocking friction causing her to moan against my tongue. The kiss is delirious, punctuated by furious intakes of breaths.

The bike wobbles because I haven't had time to kick it upright. I plant my feet on the ground to keep us from toppling over. Katniss releases this hot half-giggle, half-pant.

I'm still reeling over what she gave to me. Only me. The old Peeta is smitten and does cartwheels in his head. The new Peeta debates on taking her once more, hard and fast, on top of the bike. I don't want to let her go.

But I also don't have another condom. Plus, there's not much time left—minutes maybe—before her family wakes up. I love and despise this morning.

I try to pull away, but she hums my name and drills her fingers through my hair. Her compact body grinds against my cock.

Fuck it. I thoroughly devour her mouth and tongue with my own until my legs give out because I can't balance both her and the bike any longer. We break apart on a heated gasp. The chilly air does the rest of the work to calm us down.

"You're going to get me in trouble," I joke.

She kisses the tattoo on my wrist. "If that happens, I'll protect you."

My heart clenches. I want to take back that stupid ass promise we uttered after making love. I hated saying it. I hated denying the Real, in favor of the Not Real.

_I don't love you._

I feel the total opposite of those words. I know she does, too. I _know_ she does. Those Not Real words were a sham. Saying them isn't protecting me. It isn't making me feel safer or in less pain.

The problem is, if I take back the Not Real, she might do the same. She might utter the Real words, and if she does, I won't be capable of leaving this farm in one piece.

We make our way through the woods. With each step, her mood disintegrates. It's killing me, but I try to keep it light. As we near the cabin, I grab her waist from behind, just below the ribcage.

That's when I learn Katniss is ticklish. The walk is disjointed and clumsy as I tease her mercilessly while pecking up and down the side of her neck, and it does the trick, because she's laughing and begging me to spare her

Then she's stops. Katniss stops so fast that I almost trip over her. My hands are still on her waist when I look up. And see her father.

Mr. Everdeen stands outside the cabin door, leveling us with a look of betrayal, shock, and anger. He must have noticed Katniss wasn't home and assumed she was bringing me breakfast. When she didn't return, he must have suspected something and come here. He must have gone inside, because the door is open.

His eyes narrow in our direction, sizing us up. His daughter's loose hair. The missing kapp, which is still in her coat pocket. Her flush face. The gap in her blouse. And James Mellark's deviant, non-Amish son, with his hands planted on his daughter's body. Whose fingers had been tickling her and whose lips had been preying on her neck a second ago.

Oh. Shit.

Katniss grips my hand. The gesture blows me away. I would have thought she'd jump as far from me as possible.

Whenever my mother was about to release pent-up frustration on my brothers and me, she'd start by prowling toward us. When Mr. Everdeen heads my way, I tense up the same way I would at home.

He seems to notice and halts, though his features don't relax. Because he knows. He knows what happened this morning. He knows we've been blindsighting him.

He encouraged us to hang out. He wanted us to become friends. But that doesn't mean he wanted us to become lovers.

"Papa..." Katniss whispers.

"Go back to the house, Katniss," he orders.

"Papa, I—"

"Now!"

She stumbles against me. My arm wraps around her stomach, securing her. But I know it'll only make things worse if she doesn't listen. So I pull back and say, "Go."

She turns and shakes her head like mad. My throat bunches. This is not the way it's supposed to end.

I rest my hands on her cheeks. "Go."

She probes my gaze, then sets her chin—that's my girl—and hurries off. Dead leaves crack beneath her feet.

Once she's gone, Mr. Everdeen approaches me with caution. He punishes me with that unyielding look of his, this time stained with disappointment. I've proven what I told him from the beginning: I'm not my father. I'm incurable.

The difference is that Dad would understand this thing between Katniss and me. Holding onto that thought, I meet Mr. Everdeen's gaze head on. I wait for him to tell me that I've broken his trust. That I've corrupted and ruined Katniss. That even if I were Amish, I wouldn't be good enough.

All he says is, "You've made a fool of me, Peeta."

The he walks away. His shoes kick through the same trail of leaves as Katniss's had. I recall everything he told me over the last two months, about strong men and patience and forgiveness.

I toss the guilt aside and set my jaw. I made a fool of him by lying, but is it that big of a crime to care about his daughter?

It's not fair. It's bullshit.

kpkpkpkpkp

A half hour later, Mr. Everdeen leaves the house with one of the men who work in the fields. I waste no time making my move. This has to be fast. I have about twenty minutes before Officer Cray comes to pick me up. Now that we've been caught, I'm worried that Katniss has had enough time to reject the girl on the hill and return to the one who held me at arm's length during that hellish hiatus in our relationship.

I charge up to the house, but it's locked and there's no bell. When no one answers my knock, I rap on the door. When that doesn't work, I back up and yell, "Katniss!"

When I don't get a response, I do it again, louder this time. "Katniss!"

Prim's head pokes out from a curtain on the second floor. She twists around to say something to someone.

Before I shout a third time, the door bursts open and Katniss dashes out. She grabs my hand, and we run to the back of the house. We crash together, arms clinging, holding tight. I flatten her against the wall. She's shaking so hard I have to wrench her head up to look at me.

Her hair's braided. She's wearing her kapp again. She glances to the side and then at me. "He'll be back any minute—"

I grab her face. "Come with me."

"What?"

"Come with me," I say. "Come to the city with me. Be with me. Stay with me."

"Peeta." She dumps her head in her hands. "This is my home. I can't just go, just like that."

"I know this is fast—"

"Fast? We've known each other two months. I've known everyone else my whole life."

"Dammit, Katniss, would you stop talking about _them_ and talk about _yourself_ for once?"

"There is no _me_ without them."

"You fucking know that's not true!"

She rams a fist into her mouth. What am I doing? Why am I pushing her?

"I want you," I plead. "I want all of you. I want you every day. I won't stop wanting you. I want you to be whoever you want to be."

She releases her fist and whispers, "If that's true, then let me be Amish."

Groaning, my forehead falls against hers. Fine, so I'm a hypocrite, but I refuse to give up that easily. "Katniss, it's okay to live for others, but it's not okay to lose yourself because of it. If you don't know who you really are in the first place, what good is your devotion to people? It's an empty gift. I know how you feel about archery. It's exactly how I feel about painting. And how I felt this morning when I made love to you."

She touches my face. "The memory has to be enough for us."

"No, it doesn't! Who gives a shit what other people think?"

"I do," she chokes. "People matter whether you like it or not. Community matters. Sharing matters."

"What good is that when you can't be yourself and love whoever you fucking want to love? What kind of people shut you out for that?"

"What kind of people burn their son on purpose?" she lashes out.

The force of her words sends me staggering backward. Her eyes widen. She presses herself against me and clasps my jaw. "Peeta, no...no, I...I only meant..."

My head twists away. I'm going to scream. The wind picks up, brushing the cold air against her skirt and my sleeves. I smell the soap she uses to wash her hands. She always has this same smell, mixed with the scent of soil from the fields.

Her voice is brittle. "Unfairness exists in both of our worlds, but that isn't enough to reject either one. If I leave, I can't come back here. I couldn't see my family again. You live recklessly. You're impulsive. If I go with you, can I trust you to stay with me? Can I give all this up to take that chance? What if you leave me—"

"No," I snap. "I may be impulsive. I may be reckless. I may break rules. But the one thing I don't do is abandon the people I love." My fingers catch her chin. "I won't walk out on you. I'm not _that_ _guy_."

"Please don't ask me to make this choice," she begs.

"Then tell me to come back every night with my bike, to take you wherever you want to go. Tell me and I'll do it."

"I can't expect that from you. I can't expect you to tie yourself to me that way. You deserve a life. You deserve a girl you can be with."

"I don't want another girl! I'm in lo—"

"Katniss!" Prim comes rushing around the corner of the house, her face bloated with worry. "Papa's coming."

I wonder if she volunteered to keep watch or if Katniss asked her to.

Katniss grabs my wrist and kisses the tattoo. This is the last private moment we'll have together. I'm so overwhelmed that I go numb. I can't feel her lips.

She gives me one last look and untangles herself from me, darting around the corner with her sister, leaving me dazed. My back lands against the wall. I press my palms into my eyes. I bite down hard because now that she's gone, I begin to feel the ghost of those lips on my wrist. They burn worse than the day my mother held my arm over the stove.

kpkpkpkpkp

Cray's car teeters up the walkway, clunky and ungainly as a remote-controlled toy. For some reason, the car seems smaller now. Not to mention Cray's head, which is as perfectly round as those donuts he likes to eat while interrogating detainees. His Pac-Man mouth can obliterate one pastry in two bites.

I wonder if that's how he gets people to confess. By forcing them to endure the gruesome sight of his flapping muzzle gluttonously covered in sugar sand to the point where they just want to get the questioning over with.

I stand beneath a tree, off to the side of the house, watching the scene. The Everdeens line up in front of the porch, just like they did eight weeks ago. It's déjà vu. Except now I know my dad's past a little better, now I know that quiet men are strong, now I know what Katniss's body feels like.

Cray gets out of the car and shakes Mr. Everdeen's hand. Katniss is not listening to their conversation. Her hands are folded in front of her, head high as she gazes at the corn field.

Her back is stiff. Her profile is stiff. Her mouth is stiff. Stiff as a portrait. I imagine her hanging in a gallery somewhere, her likeness causing people who amble by to actually stop and ponder. Even in this vacant state, she is striking.

Her restraint falters when my personal motorcade rips across the landscape toward the house. She winces at the lion's roar of my bike and the purr of the Mustang as both vehicles halt behind the police car.

Finnick, who promised to retrieve the motorcycle from its hiding place today, hops off. Cray rolls his eyes. The Everdeens stare openly at my friend.

He's dressed for the occasion. Beneath his open jacket, he's wearing his favorite "Spooning leads to forking" t-shirt.

I shake my head and grin, then go still when Rye steps out of the Mustang. I'm surprised Finnick allowed him to drive it, but I guess it's better than letting my wiry brother handle the motorcycle.

My brother. I missed my brother.

I figure that Sam couldn't leave the bakery to come with Rye, which is fine by me. I can only handle seeing one brother at a time right now. He's looking around for me, his cheeks thinner than I remember. His skin is pallid, as though his health reached its expiration date a long time ago.

My feet are moving in his direction before I realize it. But Finnick sees me first and stretches out his arms, a swagger in his step. "Well, if it isn't the love child of Will Hunting and Valmont."

He pulls me into a bear hug and lifts me off the ground, and I grunt, and he laughs because he likes to remind me of my height. Dropping me, he whistles. "You're a sight for sore eyes, baby."

From the corner of my eye, I notice Katniss tense at the word _baby_.

And then I find my brother. Of all three Mellarks, he's the one who looks most like Dad. Same wide ears. Same crooked nose.

"Peeta," he says.

It happens for me in slow motion, the way we cautiously approach one another. Rye hooks his fingers over my shoulders. When I rest my hands on top of his, his lids briefly fall shut. Then we stare. Just one long look.

"Okay?" he says.

"Okay," I say.

He releases me and goes to stand beside Finnick, dissolving into the background as I turn to regard Cray and his nicotine teeth and "grease lightning" pompadour. "Still in one piece, boy?" he asks.

I'm used to him addressing me like I'm a seventeen year-old Neanderthal, but I'm not used to staying quiet. My silence baffles the crap out of him.

"Well," he stutters. "Finally. It looks like these people taught you how to shut up."

My tongue is itching for a verbal fight, but I hold it in.

"Whatever Peeta learned, he learned on his own," Mr. Everdeen says, watching me so closely and soberly that it hurts.

"We'll see," Cray says, handing Mr. Everdeen a sheet of paper. "The court will need you to sign this."

As Mr. Everdeen reads through the contents, I steal a glance at Katniss. The second our eyes meet, hers flit away.

The click of the pen grabs my attention again. Her father's fingers halt over the signature line. For an instant, I think he's going to hand back the document unsigned. Then his hand moves patiently, letter for letter, releasing me for good.

Cray strides away, grumbling that I can have a moment alone with the family. Prim hugs me and tells me I'm cool and cute. I make her giggle by ruffling the side of her kapp.

Mr. Everdeen pins me with that direct gaze he's spent his life mastering. I match it, hoping he understands that I'm sorry I lied, but I'm not sorry about my feelings. That I admire what he and my father had. That I never took advantage of Katniss. That I would do anything she asked me to.

Finally, he nods. "You're your own man. Like James."

Despite the words, his tone has lost its fondness. I accept that it's the price I have to pay.

Katniss has been staring at the field. I plant myself right in front of her and murmur, "Remember when I told you not to break eye contact with me?"

Her eyes find mine. In them, I see water hitting the mural on the cabin wall, the sketch of her fingers holding her kapp, us dancing, night rides into the city, falling asleep, our first kiss, sneaking around in the corn field, my attempt to seduce her by the wood pile, her standing at the kitchen window drinking a glass of water, the hill, our bodies, the hill, our sounds, the hill, our kisses. It's all there. And then gone.

She voids these things from her expression. She pulls down the blinders and holds out her hand. "Goodbye," she says evenly.

She's good at this. Better than I am.

I take her slim fingers and squeeze them. I've gone mute. I'm going to vomit. I walk away and manage two steps before I hear it. Maybe I'm the only one capable of hearing it. The barely audible whimper that coils from the back of her throat.

I whip back around and seize her by the waist. And I kiss her. In front of everyone, including Mr. Everdeen.

I kiss her.

My mouth swallows her gasp. I feel the wool of her dress and her hands latching onto my neck as she kisses me back. A lock of hair comes loose from her braid and caresses my cheek.

Wrenching myself away, I stride toward the police car. I snatch the aviators dangling from my crewneck and ram them onto my face, so that on the way home no one will see, no one will know, no one will suspect. I'm going to fucking cry.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	13. Chapter 13

__

_Good Girl_

He's gone. He's been gone for an hour.

Now, two hours...now, five...now, nine. My family eats supper in silence. Even though he didn't live in the house, it feels emptier, like a hollow shell missing its pearl. I keep glancing at the chair he sat in last night.

I have no idea what I've cooked tonight. I'd pulled out random green and pale yellow vegetables from the fridge, but I can't recall how they ended up in a pan or on the table afterward.

My father won't look at me. He helps himself to seconds, the serving spoon scraping against his plate. Prim refills her water glass. I press the tips of the cold fork deep into the pads of my fingers until it hurts. It keeps my mind from slipping into an abyss.

I chew my food. Somehow, I manage to finish it, yet I taste nothing. My sense of smell seems to have disappeared, too. As well as my vision, since everything fluctuates between lucid and blurry.

I haven't lost my hearing, though. I listen to the sound of chair legs wincing across the floor as my father rises after finishing his meal. Without a word, he leaves the room.

Prim and I keep our heads down and stare at the center of the table. I feel warmth when she tentatively covers my hand with her own, and we stay frozen like that, the physical contact foreign to us. But it's also proof that I have not lost my sense of touch.

I stay at the table long after she departs. I am the last one to go to bed.

One month.

Two months.

Three months.

During that time, I do my chores. I am the daughter, the sister, the cook, the church patron. I am the good girl once more.

It comes to me automatically, but no longer naturally or blissfully. My movements are rusty, but I get through it, more determined than ever to stay busy and useful. It keeps my mind from wandering to the memory of his final kiss.

The most comforting moments take place in the fields. The lazy brush of wheat. The merciful opportunity to vanish between rows of corn. But too soon, the beautiful litany of the harvest ends, stepping aside for winter. My favorite time of the year closes its doors to me.

In my free time, I sit by the fire. When I do, my consciousness froths. I stare and stare and stare, only vaguely aware of my father's comings and goings, and my sister's attempts to chat. I'm being selfish and dramatic, but I don't care. I do what I have to do every day. They cannot tell me how to spend the rest of my hours, so long as I'm following the rules.

My father and I swap roles. He becomes less withdrawn, while I become more so. He has finally pardoned my "indiscretion." In fact, I detect worry in his voice when he addresses me. Worry that later evolves to frustration because the hearth and I have apparently become attached at the hip. He questions, lectures, advises.

_Why don't you and Prim..._

_You could go visit Madge or Delly..._

_What about that quilting project..._

_You can't keep this up..._

_Katniss Everdeen, kindly acknowledge me when I'm speaking to you..._

Each time, I nod without dedication or mumble an excuse. Occasionally, I even snap back at him. When I do, he scratches his beard in response. Not even his purposeful gaze commands my attention the way it used to. Perhaps because I have inherited that gaze and am just now learning how to use it back.

At night, I stare at the sketch Peeta drew for me when we first met. Or I read the poetry book he bought me when we took his bike into the city. Or I picture his face and scream into my pillow. I don't cry, though. The last time I did, he was moving inside me.

If I cry now, I'll break. As it is, I'd fallen apart so quickly. And if I give in fully to this weak sensation, I'll become its victim. It will take ten times as long to put myself together again.

I cannot allow that to happen. He would not want to see me like this. Not because of him.

I pray. I keep faith that my strength will return. I must travel this dark tunnel first. The other side awaits. I'm on my way.

People in the community are chummy with me again, now that our cabin is vacant. Yet they believe me a fool for breaking up with Gale. Their puzzled gazes at church tell me so.

At first, they suspect it has something to do with Peeta. But what happened between me and him has stayed tucked behind the Everdeen curtain. Prim doesn't betray the truth to the older girls who shamelessly approach her for information. Because they fail to gather confirmation on what really happened, public doubt takes a back seat to the possibility that my breakup with Gale was mutual.

Indeed, I learn from Prim that he has been reinforcing this belief. He insists to people that it was mutual, even though it wasn't.

Ever the boy to stick to routine, Gale continues to go to the Sunday parties at Madge's. I haven't attended them in a long time. I'm both tempted and afraid to. If I go, I will hear more rumspringa tales from my active friends. What if someone mentions that they've seen Peeta during a trip into the city? What if they mention a place he took me to?

I'm relieved when Gale stops by in early February. We hike through the snow together and find ourselves reaching out to one another like we used to. I learn from him that he's found an unlikely confidant in Madge, whom he never spent any real time with before. This is the one area that gives me a spark of pleasure.

Though I cannot say I'm not a bit jealous, because I still want to be his friend. We saw each other during the holidays, and we always see each other at church, but that's been our limit until now. I'd broken his heart. I gave him time, hoping he would someday forgive me.

"I had no idea you were sad over him leaving," Gale admits when I explain my absence from social life.

It feels okay to tell him the truth, that Peeta and I had developed feelings for each other. It feels okay because I trust Gale. He's the one who broached the subject in the first place, and he seems ready to talk. Though I have the suspicion that Madge has something to do with this turnaround.

He rubs his mitten-covered hands together. "I thought you weren't showing up at her house because you suspected I would be there and it would be awkward. Whenever I saw you looking so distant in church, I thought it was because being near me made you uncomfortable. I guess I didn't want to believe that I affected you less than an English boy."

"You _did_ affect me," I assure him. "But he was different."

"I would have come to you if you needed comfort."

"That wouldn't have been fair. I would never force that on you. You're too special to me."

"Was he good to you?"

"Always."

Gale nods, taking a deep breath. "I still miss you. I'm still...I haven't unloved you, Katniss."

"But?"

He sniffs frosty air into his red nose. He takes my arm and slips it through his, shaking me affectionately. "But this is nice, too."

It _is_ nice. Our friendship isn't completely back to normal. Perhaps it won't ever be, but this is nice. Walking and talking with him, swapping apologies as our feet stamp into the snow.

And that's when I start to breathe again.

kpkpkpkpkp

Since my friendship with Gale resumed, I've been feeling more like myself. I don't sacrifice as much time by the fire. I've even spent an afternoon with my friends. I've been experimenting a little with cooking, but since it's winter, there's only so much I can do with a rutabaga. And I've been increasingly responsive to Papa and Prim.

For a second, I think I will be okay, too. That is, until the package shows up.

I'm sitting in my room, calmly fixing a rip in my best pair of stockings when Prim tiptoes in, an apprehensive look stretched across her face. I frown and set the needlework on my lap. She's hiding something behind her back, her thin arms wobbling. Whatever she's holding, it must be heavy.

I shift on the bed, inviting her to sit beside me, but she doesn't. She glances behind her into the hall, as if expecting to be caught even though our father isn't home.

"Prim?" I ask, speculating whether she's up to no good. "Prim, what—"

As my sister steps toward me, her arms move to the front to reveal a brown box with a bunch of postal stamps on it. It's addressed to me, and it's from a business. The Mellark bakery.

The stockings, pincushion, and thread fall to the floor. I launch to my feet but can't move. My heart leaps into my throat. Three months. Three months without him. I'm desperate to open it. I'm dreading opening it.

Frantic questions cycle through my head. What has he been doing? Is he away from his mother? Is he in trouble again? Is he okay? Is he happy?

"I found this on the porch," Prim says.

I wipe my hands on my apron. I sit. I stand.

"Katniss?"

"I'm fine," I lie. I accept the package from her with shaky hands. I run my index finger over the neat, loopy handwriting, touched by how eloquently he spelled my name. He took his time writing it out, I can tell.

I screw my eyes shut. I'm terrified of finding a letter inside. Of what it will say. Of what it will do to me.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Prim asks.

"No, actually I...I can't do this here," I say.

Since he left, I haven't dared set foot in the cabin. Today, I make the trip. I grab my coat and hike through the woods, cradling the package to my chest, recalling this familiar route with a pain that sears my insides. When I arrive, the dwelling looks abandoned as if he'd never been here.

The door creaks when I open it and walk inside. My breath hitches as the lingering smell of him throttles me. Wood chips and leather and spice...cinnamon, I finally realize. I stare at the bed where we slept, the wood stove that kept us warm, the area of the floor where we sat during the storm as he explained about his dandelion tattoo. The painting of our hill on the wall.

I place the box on the mattress and then trace the mural, the very spot where we wrapped ourselves around each other. We had our first kiss while he painted this, neither of us knowing yet how significant that place would become.

I wipe dust from the mural with my sleeve. Much better.

I perch on the bed, lift his pillow, press it to my face, and inhale the sweet scent. I sit there until light from the sun shifts in the sky, brightening a different corner of the cabin. I think about leaving the package here and not opening it yet. I need more time. I'm not ready to remember. I tell myself I'm not ready for whatever he sent me. I have to wait.

I tear open the package anyway. Styrofoam pieces overflow from the box as I dig through it and feel something solid and thin and curved, with some sort of taut cord attached and...

My hands shoot to my mouth. "Oh, Peeta."

Gently, I lift the bow from the package and examine it in wonder. It's a dark wood color and fits perfectly in my hands. Licking my lips, I glide my fingers over the arc and pluck the string. Along with the bow is a packet of arrows made of the same dark wood inlaid with green. The heads are sharp and have never been fired. The feathers tickle my skin.

There's no letter. I don't need one. I know what he's trying to say.

My knees hit the floor. My throat closes up. My face inflates with heat. I feel it coming. First, it's a whimper. Then it's a choked cry.

And that's when I start sobbing.

kpkpkpkpkp

There's nothing to catch in the woods at this hour, during this season. Nevertheless, it feels wonderful. Stealing through the trees with this new instrument in my hand, something stirs in me that I recall from childhood. Excitement. Power. Strength. Purpose. Like this, I belong only to myself.

Now that I've wept until there were no more tears, my body is weightless and agile. Instead of feeling worn out, I'm refueled.

Some sort of unidentified creature snaps a twig in the branches above. I raise the bow, searching, but sigh when I cannot locate the source. This feels right. This is what I was meant to do.

I decide on a target, just to get accustomed, just for ceremony, to introduce myself to the craft. I focus on a knot in a tree twenty feet away. It's bulbous and heart-shaped. I lift the instrument and set the arrow, positioning my fingers the way that man in the city arcade showed me to, when Peeta took me there.

The real thing is a lot harder to master, but I will learn. My mouth purses. I caress the arrow's neck, give the feathers a light kiss, one I hope Peeta will somehow feel.

I release the arrow. In a blink, the point hits the border of the knot, almost inside, almost there.

And that's when I start to grin.

kpkpkpkpkp

My father rises from the couch when I enter the house. The fire in the hearth illuminates his tight features. My coat and shoes are wet from the snow. My toes and lips are numb, and it's the best feeling in the world right now. So I leave myself open and vulnerable to his stare. This is who I am.

"She told me you were with Gale," Papa says, gesturing toward Prim, who twitches in the corner like a wounded bunny.

She carries the look of a daughter who has recently been scolded. She lied to our father for me. I want to hug her and also wag a finger at her. I do neither because this really has nothing to do with her. My father was disappointed by my break-up with Gale and then relieved to see me at least resume our kinship.

But this is not about Gale, either. This is about his reaction when his gray eyes stray to the arrow pack dangling from my shoulder and then land on the bow that I'm clasping onto for dear life.

"Where did you get that?" he asks.

I straighten, challenging him with my best Katniss posture. "It was sent to me."

I let my expression do the rest of the talking. Papa grunts, but the annoyance doesn't last. He shakes his head ruefully. "James Mellark would have done the same thing." He tilts his head to the side, studying me, and I wonder what he sees. Am I someone completely unrecognizable or just the same girl from a different angle?

He gestures toward the bow. "You made one of those when you were little."

I'm surprised he remembers that. My mother caught me with the bow and snapped it in half, then lectured me on the proper roles we Amish women must stick to. She'd said that I should let it be a lesson to me. She was so icy to her children, because that's how my grandparents treated her. She wasn't a very eager wife, either, but Papa never complained. He never stopped caring for her.

"Mother broke it," I blurt out and then feel guilty.

Papa flinches. "But I fixed it."

My sister and I swap baffled glances as he leaves the room and returns a couple of minutes later with a child-sized bow made from a branch switch and yarn. It's a crude model, but the memory of assembling it is clear in my mind. Seeing it again, I almost lose my grip on my new bow.

"You kept it?" I ask. "Why?"

He scratches his beard. "Because you're my daughter. Because I remember your smile when you made it. I didn't approve of your interest in it, yet I didn't want to forget that smile. So I hid it. I should have given it back to you. It was only a toy at the time, but I didn't want you getting more and more attached. It's strange how I wanted to keep it from you but also remember you that way. Can you forgive me for that?"

"Of course," I say quickly.

This is the closest we've come to a meaningful conversation in three months. Who knows why he kept that little bow in spite of not wanting me to have it? Who knows how he was able to love a woman who never loved their children or him in the same way? Who knows why he kept his friendship with Mr. Mellark so close to his heart?

Not all feelings or actions or intentions can be reduced to one solid explanation. Motivations aren't always that simple. Emotions are diverse.

Peeta would say that's what makes the heart incredible. That's what makes us real. That's what makes us flawed. That's what makes us redeemable. That's what makes us, hopefully, still good people.

Papa sighs. "Why haven't you embraced rumspringa? You could have shot an arrow all this time, whenever you went out."

That's not the point.

"I don't want this—" I lift the bow, "—to be a temporary thing."

"Am I a blind old fool, Katniss?"

"No," I promise. If my eyes weren't so raw from crying in the cabin, the vulnerability in his voice might have caused my tears to flow again.

"I wanted you and Peeta to have a friendship. I wanted that in honor of his father. I wanted you to have some sort of connection to the outside world, if not through rumspringa. I thought it was important. It's your right of passage. But I trusted you wouldn't...I didn't expect...I didn't expect just how far you would go. I never thought you'd risk such a thing as your place here. Was I wrong to think you were merely being stubborn and loyal to Gale by not participating? Or... besides the bow, have I ever held you back in some other way?"

"No. Never."

"Are you happy?"

In that moment, I do the one thing I never thought I'd do when faced with that question: I hesitate. "I'm not unhappy," I finally manage. "With you and Prim, I have enough."

"Oh, my Kat." With effort, he shakes his head. "That's not enough for you. Not while you carry that bow."

"That's not true! I can go hunting in the mornings. No one has to know. And I can still be here. I adore my family. You and Prim. This is where I'm from. This is my home—"

"Do you love him?"

The backs of my eyes burn. I close them and see Peeta's face as I always see it. I feel every moment I spent with him and every word we shared. I feel the word _always_ like it's a tangible thing. The same tangible thing that rocks me to sleep each night.

Yes, I do. I love him. I love him desperately.

And he loved me. He _loves_ me. Doesn't he?

Panic jolts through me. Does he still feel that way? Are three months enough time to forget?

"Katniss." Papa pushes out the words. "Go to him."

My body splits in half. I step back, but my father is suddenly there, taking my shoulders, anchoring me to the floor. "I know what it's like to be stuck between the people I love."

I think of my mother. And I peek over at Prim, still trapped in the corner. Papa has spent years torn between his wife and his daughters. Then when she died, he remained between Prim and me.

"I know what it's like. I don't want that to happen to you," he says.

"But it's a choice I can't undo. I don't know anything about—"

"You'll be eighteen in two months. Take rumspringa like you were supposed to. Be with him every weekend until then. If you decide you want to stay in that world with him, we..."

"We'll understand," Prim finishes, stepping out of the shadow.

"Katniss," Papa says. "Go. And find out."

Find out. Someone else once said that to me. Whichever choice I make—my family or Peeta—I will be giving up something for the rest of my life. It sounds impossible. But if there's always this feeling, this bond, maybe it will hurt just a little less.

The bow is still tucked in my hand. I clutch it for strength.

And on the following Friday, they drive me in our carriage to a train stop on the outskirts of our community. Armed with the address from Peeta's package, I hug my father and Prim goodbye. He tells me to take a cab from the train station. He tells me to be careful. He tells me to be good. He tells me to make sure Peeta looks out for me, and me him.

In a delicate voice, he tells me, "We will miss you."

I hop from the carriage and start across the snow. It's an unseasonably warm day for winter. The landscape is plush and white and clear. It's midday, and there are so many hours ahead of me, and so much to see.

The more steps I take, the faster I walk. I feel the way I did riding his motorcycle, my arms wrapped tightly around him, when our trips turned me into a bird like the one on his ring. And I smile.

And that's when I start running.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	14. Chapter 14

_Bad Boy_

I splash water on my face in the bathroom, then scrutinize my reflection in the mirror. Yup, I'm still there. Somehow.

A guitar riff splinters through my apartment from the heart of the living room. Finnick wanted to bring "a few friends" over, and I'd known what that meant, so I'd shrugged and told him it was fine. Whatever. A party is kind of overdue anyway. It's been a mellow three months.

Twisting, I pull down the side of my jeans and check the status of the new tattoo inked on my hip. I run my thumb over the design and let the memories unfurl.

Someone bangs on the door. "Come out, shithead."

Rye. I open the door and see him frowning. He's been doing that a lot—pretty much ever since he saw me get out of Cray's car the day we got back to the city. My aviators hid the redness of my eyes, but that was irrelevant. My brother has x-ray vision. What he saw behind the sunglasses had drained the relief from his face over having me back.

He checks me up and down. "Good. You're in one piece."

I smirk. "I was primping."

We chuckle. Despite my moodiness, we're both better now that Mom is out of the picture.

At first, we'd crammed into Sam's one bedroom apartment above the bakery. But a month later, he bought a house with the money he'd been saving, took Rye with him, and left me this place. We own the building, thanks to Dad, so I don't have to worry about rent. And I've been working at the bakery again. Things are sort of normal.

"You're not going to hide in here and make me deal with your bitch all night, are you?" Rye asks.

I move past him and into the hall, asking over my shoulder, "Since when do I ever hide?"

Rye doesn't respond.

The living room smells of jasmine perfume and beer breath. Thresh and Sam are here, as well as some other people I don't know. Annie and Johanna are giving Finnick a show. They're grinding against one another to the music, swathed in tight denim and leopard print, while he reclines on the sofa and admires them.

I wrinkle my nose. Did this really used to be my antidote to rage?

The minute Annie and Johanna see me, their gyrations become more pronounced. Their breasts knock together as they stare right at me, but I don't take the bait.

Without looking away from them, Finnick reaches up and behind to grab my arm, stopping me from walking by. "Baby, you gotta watch this."

I can recall a time about six months ago, not too long before I was sent to Mr. Everdeen, when Annie and Johanna went at it in front of me. In private. With less clothes.

"I've seen it before," I remark.

Groaning, Finnick's head flops against the sofa. He's desperate to break me out of my sexual funk. I haven't been with anyone since Katniss.

In the corner, I notice Glimmer flirting with Thresh. She casts me a scorned look. I had to pry her hands off me pretty quickly after we saw each other again. She'd gotten the point, but she's still holding a grudge.

Sam is busy chatting up his date. He looks so preoccupied that I take advantage. I steal his shot glass and down the contents, then hand it back to him with a wink.

He laughs. "Having fun?"

"No," I answer and then leave the couple alone. I climb through the window and park my ass on the fire escape. My nose ices up quickly from the polar temperature. The stars are the same ones over the Everdeen farm tonight. Maybe she's at the kitchen window watching them. Maybe she's licking the rim of a water glass.

"How romantic," Finnick chimes, climbing out and planting himself across from me. He pulls out a cigarette and lights up. Fire glints off the planes of his face.

"If you're not interested in one of the girls, I'm still here," he suggests. "I dream about kissing you."

"I know you do."

He kicks my foot. "Smart ass."

We stare at the empty street below. The wincing echo of a cricket strings through the air from an unknown location.

Finnick taps the cigarette against his knee. "Peet—"

"Shut up."

"Fine, but at least..." He jerks his thumb toward the apartment. "At least _think_ about one of them going down on you. What about Glimmer?"

I glare. "Isn't there someone you can't forget? Someone you felt...that way...about?"

His eyes darken. I've never seen him this serious before.

He stares at me.

He stares.

At me.

Me.

Shit. I always thought he was just having fun making passes at me.

I wince, feeling guilty and blind as hell. "Finn—"

He waves me off, the orange butt of his cigarette slashing through the darkness. "Don't go there. It's weird. We didn't know each other when you were just a good little baker boy. It's weird if you suddenly turn all Sympathetic Peeta on me now."

We met while I was getting the dandelion tattoo. He saw me in the parlor with my shirt off and hit on me before the drill stopped buzzing. I wonder when his attempts to kiss me had ceased being a product of his libido and began to mean more. I wonder what all my indifferent rejections did to him.

I grimace at the iron bars marching across the fire escape. "How do you stand being my friend?"

"You ever see that Nick Cage movie, _Adaptation_?"

"No."

"So there's this scene where one of the twins that Cage is playing talks about the unrequited love of his life. This dream girl who ridiculed him in school. And he explains that he was happy still loving her—"

"Are you saying I've been purposefully treating you like crap?"

"Fuck, Peet. No. Don't take it so literally. Let me finish." He takes another drag. "So Cage's character says it's fine to still love that wench because those feelings belonged to _him alone_. The ability to feel that way was _his_. No one could take it away or ruin it. There's this line Cage says at the end of his speech. You ready?"

I wait, and Finnick quotes, "We are what _we love_. Not what _loves us_." Then he pauses. "Don't get me wrong. It'd be a lot hotter if you felt the same, but I still get to love you anyway. The feeling is still mine. You know?"

I don't know. I wouldn't be okay wanting someone who didn't want me back, but the theory seems to help my friend. That's good enough for me.

He sighs. "Anyway, I know you miss that girl, Katniss. But can you just start trying to be okay?"

I gaze at his hopeful face. I utter my next words mainly because Katniss would want me to say them. And because it will reassure Finnick. Not because I really think it's going to be that easy.

"Yeah. I can try. But I'm doing it my way," I say, then nip my chin toward the party and the girls. "Not your way."

He salutes me. "You're the boss. I'm the bitch."

As I snigger, Rye pops the top half of his body out the window. "Peeta—"

"This is a Couples Only zone," Finnick declares, circling his finger around the fire escape.

Rye rubs his temples. His cheeks are red but not in a festive way. He seems anxious.

My chest constricts as a bizarre off-season current of warmth rustles my clothes. The atmosphere suddenly feels different.

I frown at him. "What's up?"

"You have a visitor downstairs."

kpkpkpkpkp

I head down the steps. I turn the corner. Into the bakery. And stop.

Her braid hangs over her left shoulder. She'd been gazing around the place in wonder, but when she hears me, her beautiful profile twists in my direction.

We both step back. A helicopter chooses that moment to circle above the street and flash a beam through the closed blinds of the storefront. I rub my eyes, expecting her to disappear and take my heart with her again.

I open my eyes. She's still there. My pulse launches into warp speed.

"Katniss..." I whisper. Her name tastes like salt and corn and fresh water.

She swallows as though she can taste it, too.

I smell the farm on her. The soil. The wheat field. It's beyond surreal. Her. Here.

My fingers curl. I want to grab her.

She points to the red-tiled wall where baskets are lined along shelves. The baskets are empty for the night, but mini chalkboards are propped in front of them, listing bread types and prices. "You should arrange the loaves in alphabetical order," she says. "And you're charging too much for the sourdough. And too little for the _schwartzbrot_."

"Katniss, what are you—"

"Do you offer half price for the older loaves? Because you should."

What the fuck?

"Is something wrong?" I ask. "Did something happen at home?"

She gazes at me with those familiar gray eyes that I've come to adore. Her kapp and apron are nowhere to be found. She wears the green cotton dress I remember. The one that always brings out the flush in her cheeks.

Her blush intensifies when I notice her overnight bag in the corner. I'm reeling. I'm delirious. I don't know what to expect. I don't know what to say. Or what part of her body I want to touch first.

"What are you doing here?" I manage.

She sucks in her lips and crushes them together. Commotion erupts from behind me. I wheel around to see Rye and Sam herding my guests like cattle from the stairway, through the bakery, and toward the front door. Aside from the fire escape, this is the only way in and out of the building. As my brothers corral everyone to the exit, they both give me looks that say Katniss and I can be alone now.

People pass by me, bumping their fists against my shoulder and saying goodnight. They cast curious glances at Katniss. Especially the girls. She stiffens at the parade of Spandex and low-rise jeans that slink by. The purple shadow beneath Annie's raised brow. The click of Johanna's heels. The competitive pout on Glimmer's face.

And Katniss. My Katniss. She matches Glimmer's territorial glare with one of her own, jutting out her chin, turning slowly and following the girl's departure.

Finnick is the last to emerge. He halts when he sees Katniss. I detect a flash of pain hidden behind his features, but he swiftly covers it up with a genuine smile. He shocks her by seizing her hand and kissing her knuckles. "Welcome to the city," he says, then swings his arm toward me. "He's all yours."

Pausing behind her, he points over her head and mouths to me, _DO NOT let her go again, you pussy._

He struts out of the bakery. The door closes. The bell attached to the handle gives a fragile little ring. Then it's quiet again.

The possessive expression Katniss aimed at Glimmer gives me hope. I step forward, but my smile dies when she nails me with her watery eyes. The confidence she mastered a second ago is gone. Her voice is feeble. "Who were those people?"

"My brothers. And Finnick. And the rest were guests."

"Those girls, too?"

"Finnick brought them over."

"Have you been with them?"

I cringe. I wish I could, but I can't undo the parts of my life that happened before I met her. "I have but—"

Her chin quivers. I feel my eyes dilate to the size of dinner rolls. Rye is right. I'm such a shithead. It's only now that I realize she wasn't asking me if I'd slept with them _before_ I met her. She was asking if I've slept with them _recently_ , since I left the farm.

She walks backward, holding up her hands. "I'm a stupid girl."

"Katniss, no—"

"Clearly, I've interrupted something."

"No!"

She runs out of the bakery. I storm after her, shouting her name, but she's already made it to the end of the block. My arms pump hard, my feet slamming onto the sidewalk, the frigid temperature stinging my cheeks. My hand rips out and catches her by the elbow, jerking her to a standstill on the corner. We stumble for balance on the icy concrete. Tears smear her face as she grunts and tries to fight me off.

I steady her arms. "Katniss, that's not what I meant. I didn't think you were asking about now. I had something with those girls a long time ago, but nothing's happened since I got home. Nothing."

Relief floods her face, but she still won't look my way. I can't stand it. "Hey, I told you not to break eye contact with me, remember?"

Her head snaps up. "Ididn'twantyoutogo."

"Huh?"

"I didn't want you to go," she cries. "I didn't want you to leave, but you had to. You asked me to come with you, but I said no. And I chose my family. And I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I love my brothers. I get it."

"I'm sorry I came here without letting you know, but we couldn't contact each other, and I got the bow, and it's incredible, and I almost hit my target..."

She likes the bow I sent her. It took me all three months to save up for it. And she likes it.

"...I got too used to sitting by the fire alone, but then Gale forgave me, and we're friends. And my father understands now..."

I shake my head, wanting to stop her, but no words come out.

"...and he reminded me there's still two months until I'm eighteen, and that I should take what's left of my rumspringa to be with you. I came for you. I had to see you..."

I never thought I'd see the day when Katniss Everdeen would refuse to shut up.

"...so I have the weekends, and then I'll have to decide, and I came here..."

I puzzle together most of her rambling, and it's the best thing I've ever heard.

"...and I'm sorry I didn't warn you, and I'm sorry I just ran off like that, but those girls wear far too much makeup, and I can leave if you want, but you have to know that I love you, I love you so much, I love you more than anything, and you should really change the price of your sourdough becau—"

My mouth swoops down and silences her. The response is instant. With a cry, she wrings her arms around my neck and thrusts her fingers through my hair. My tongue pries her lips open and flicks hotly against hers, and I groan into her mouth, tilting my head and stroking her lips with mine. We lose ourselves. I kiss her so roughly that I can hear the wheat fields shuddering in my ears.

A pair of shadows across the street whistles in our direction. "Hot!" they cheer while passing us.

Katniss breaks away, her skin turning crimson as she remembers we're in public. I tell her to ignore the audience, and her answering smile is contagious. So I kiss her again until we're both breathless.

As we come up for air, she looks around. "This is a pretty place."

The bakery's located in a good part of the city. A village-like area with a Euro flair. There are narrow tree-lined streets, squat buildings, and coffee houses. During the warm months, window boxes overflowing with flowers decorate the front of the bakery.

"Your bakery is much nicer than the cafe around the corner," she remarks.

I frown. "You mean Marvel's?"

She clears her throat. "I may have gone inside for a while. To gather my bearings for this reunion."

"Katniss...when did you get here?"

"Four hours ago."

"Four hours ago?" I demand. "You've been only a block away for the last _four fucking hours_? What were you doing?"

"Panicking," she answers. "Praying in secret. And eating three bowls of their lamb stew special. I was scared to find out whether I'd lost you. I didn't...I didn't know if things would be the same."

I brush my lips against hers. "And are they the same?"

"Yes," she whispers. "I mean, I think so. I hope so."

"Hmm." My fingers drop to the neckline of her blouse. "I think we need to find out." I pause until our gazes connect, then say, "Come back to the bakery with me."

kpkpkpkpkp

I discover that Katniss has become an impatient girl. A loud, demanding girl. Her smoky moans pack the bakery. My name falls eagerly from her tongue, and it drives me wild. With the window blinds already closed, no one can see us as our bodies beat together in a frenzy.

I growl, my hips rocking into hers, which causes her body to jerk across the counter. She's intoxicating like this, naked and flush against the hard surface, thighs spread and clinging to my waist. Until her, I had no idea what it meant to really want someone.

We couldn't wait. We hadn't seen or touched each other in months. We'd stumbled into the bakery, tearing at each other's clothes. I'd barely managed to lock the door. It was clear we weren't making it upstairs.

My arm had lashed out and swiped the contents off the nearest counter. Flour canisters crashed to the floor. Coins from the tip jar rained across the linoleum. I'd picked her up and dropped her on ledge, wrenching her knees apart to stand between them, and our mouths found each other again.

That's when I remembered the condom. "Shit," I muttered.

Katniss had laughed as I hauled my naked ass up the stairs to grab one. When I returned, there she was, nude except for the dark thigh-high stockings I'd purposefully left on her.

There she was. Waiting for me. Here for me.

I wasted no time. The tip of my erection sought out her moisture, and at the first contact, we whimpered. Our foreheads merged. I bit my lower lip to the point of pain and pulled back, then probed her again.

"Feel it?" I asked.

"Yes," she exhaled. "I feel it."

Her eyes pierced mine. The sight undid me. I'd grabbed the backs of her knees, lifted them, and slipped fully into her. Her body melted backward against the counter while I remained standing.

And now, I grind harder. She raises her hips to take me deeper, and I fill her to the brim. My shoulders are trembling. My back is beginning to sweat. I'm surprised the shaky sounds we're making aren't rattling the copper pots hanging above our heads.

Katniss keens and reaches out for me, beckoning me closer. I bend and fall against her. I grasp the rim of the counter for leverage and use it to pound into her, my mouth falling open and a groan toppling out.

"Peeta," she gasps, each word accented by my movements. "Missed. You. Always."

I groan a second time from her words. And from her earlier rant. When she told me the bow was incredible. That she came here for me. That she loves me.

And I...I...I feel it in the spot where our hips are locked, my cock thrumming, her insides tensing. Her cries get louder, fiercer, greedier.

The instant she clenches around me, she throws her head back and shouts into the air. I let her ride it out, then pull her upright and kiss her. One more vicious thrust and I'm there with her. My length pulsates, my face presses into her neck, and my guttural moan hits her skin.

Together, we go limp. Her arms and legs fasten me to her while we struggle to catch our breaths. She knits her fingers into my hair. I rest my cheek on her shoulder. This has to be a fucking dream.

Playfully, I snap the top of her stockings against her thighs. "How many pairs of these did you bring?"

Her body shakes with a silent chuckle. "I learned that you're a painter. I learned that you're a baker. I learned you like rock music with a folk twist. I learned that you love your father and your brothers."

My eyes squeeze shut. Her speech takes me back to the hill, where I told her all those things I learned about her.

"I learned that you smack your lips when you sleep," Katniss whispers. "I learned that you chew on your lower lip when you're surprised. I learned that you like fast vehicles and slow dancing. I learned that you're allergic to honey. I learned you have two tattoos—"

"Three."

"What?"

My head tips back. We were so worked up earlier that she must not have noticed, not even when she yanked down my pants. I twist, just enough to expose the tattoo on the inside of my hip. My eyes flit downward. She follows the movement and sees the green letters inked into the skin.

_Katniss_

She looks up at me, her eyes watery. I take her face in my hands. "I love you, Katniss."

She chokes back a sob. "Say it again."

"I love you."

"Again."

I plaster kisses all over her face and neck, branding each spot with _I love you's_ until she's giggling.

"Soooo," I begin, my fingers skimming her lower back. "Just to recap. You can spend every weekend here for the next two months."

"Mmm-hmm." She matches my touch by tracing the tattoo on my hip. "And then, I turn eighteen and choose whether to stay with my Order."

"Or?" I prompt.

"Or stay here. With you."

Mentally, I'm punching my fist into the air and whooping and clearing out half the closet for her. "So do we get married? What's the rule?"

She grins. "There is no rule after that. It's our choice. But I like the idea of waiting until we're ready. I'm okay with that. I just want to be with you. As long as you want me to be here, too."

I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "What else do you want?"

Her features shrink. This isn't easy for her. Nevertheless, I'm grateful to Mr. Everdeen. He still trusts me enough to take care of his daughter. I won't let him down.

She meets my eyes. "I want to get back on your bike. I want to go to that bookstore again. I want to go to that arcade with the archery booth. And you said there's a park. And you said there's a church."

Good enough. She has time. We have time.

"Anywhere you want. But first..." I raise a mischievous eyebrow. For what I have in mind, at least for this first weekend, she might not have the energy for sightseeing. "You're here until when?"

"I suppose I have until Sunday evening—"

Katniss belts out a startled laugh when I haul her off the counter. She tightens her legs around my waist and holds onto me as I sprint us up the stairs, where we have another mind-blowing reunion in my bed. And in my shower. And on my couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to annarosen for prompting me with an Amish theme, and DustWriter and Chelzie for being wonderful betas!
> 
> Lastly, I cannot express this enough: It's impossible for me to keep these two beautiful characters apart. They symbolize hope. Always ;)
> 
> Music: "Ho Hey" by the Lumineers.

_Epilogue_

_Bad Boy_

I lift my head off the pillow and rub my eyes. It's an important morning. A year ago today, I met her for the first time. Seven months ago today, she came to the city to see me.

It's September. It's early, on my day off. The girl tucked into my chest is still sleeping. She rests on her side, the blanket pulled low and barely covering the blooming curve of her ass. Her back is gloriously exposed, with a curtain of dark waves falling over it. I never get tired of this sight.

My finger trails down her spine, the mockingjay ring lightly scraping her skin. She sighs unconsciously. I press a kiss to her shoulder, get out of bed, and force myself into my clothes. Although night is usually the best time to do my art, today is different. Still, it's tough to be motivated when it requires leaving the warmth of my girlfriend's body.

Carrying my supplies, I head downstairs and greet Darius and Lavinia, who work the overnight shift preparing the day's supply of dough. It's good that this old building's got brick walls. Otherwise, they would hear everything that goes on upstairs.

It's Saturday, which means it's Rye's job to relieve them and open the bakery. He should be here in an hour.

It's chilly outside. I round the corner, halt at the side of the Mellark building, and survey the mural I'd begun a few days ago...well, it's actually taken longer than that to work on. The face has been in my head for two years, but I've only now gotten the courage to immortalize it.

I rattle the spray can. For the next forty minutes, there's nothing but the arc of my arm and the whiz of the paint hitting the brick surface. When I'm done, I release a breath that's been jammed in my chest for way too many seasons.

I step back and tilt my head. It looks done. It looks right.

"It's perfect." Her voice is cracked with sleep and affection.

I grin and wheel around slowly. She's standing there, her hair falling over her dark green t-shirt, hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans. I want to tell her that nothing's perfect, but that's just not true. The way her hips fill out the denim is perfect. The material disappears into a pair of brown lace-up boots that we'd discovered in a thrift store.

Katniss likes thrift stores. She also like boots.

Her cheeks are flushed from sleep. I open my arms to her, and she rushes forward. As I lift her up, she wraps her legs around my torso and kisses me.

Katniss likes to kiss. A lot.

We twist our gazes toward the mural, our temples pressed together as we stare at the wall. At my father's crooked nose and wide ears and easy grin. At the blue eyes I inherited from him. The face that has taken so long for me to paint.

Next to him is Mr. Everdeen. His strong gaze and long beard.

Katniss toys with my hair. "You brought them back together."

I guess in this small way I have. I've brought them back to the place where they met—where Katniss and I live now. We get to see them every day. We get to miss them. But we also get to let go.

It was the magazine I found a month ago that jump-started my need to do this mural. My brothers and I had finally gone through Dad's stuff and found the old periodical. A specific page had been marked.

Ten years ago, a photographer had been allowed a rare visit to an Amish community to document the lifestyle. While there, the photographer had taken a snapshot of an eight-year old Katniss Everdeen while she'd been crafting her first toy bow. The caption had mentioned her name.

In the backdrop, Mr. Everdeen had been watching her. The picture was published in a magazine, and my father must have found it on a newsstand in the city.

Katniss didn't remember the photo, but when I saw it, I realized that I did. My father had shown me the picture when I was a kid.

"That's my friend's daughter," he'd said.

Her gorgeous frown had enchanted me. So had that small bow she held.

The night I got arrested, when I conjured up her face, it hadn't been a freak accident. It was an image that had eventually faded only to return subconsciously, but with grown-up features—at the time when I needed it most.

Right after Katniss got here, I'd wanted to show her the mural I did of her beneath the bridge. But the neighborhood clean-up crew had already painted over it.

That's fine. I have the real thing now.

Still propped up in my arms, Katniss yawns. She must be overly tired, having worked a double shift yesterday at our local sports center, where she teaches archery. It turns out, she's a virtuoso with the bow. It didn't take her long to perfect her skills. It made my fucking jaw drop when I finally saw just how good she was.

When neither of us are working, or when she needs a break from the city noise, we ride my bike into the countryside. She takes her arrow pack and goes scampering into the woods for hours while I sketch or listen to music.

There's a pick-your-own farm nearby. Katniss is already on a first-name basis with the owners. It's not the same as the harvest, but we plan on going there a lot this fall. It works out well. It's a balance.

"You should go back to sleep," I tell her. "We have all day."

"No. I like it right here."

I smirk. Katniss likes to be held. She likes museums and all-you-can-eat buffets. She likes dishwashers. She likes parks. She likes cheese buns. She likes flower stands. She likes indie folk clubs.

She likes the church a few blocks away. It's bigger than what she's used to, but from the first visit, she instantly fell in love with the high ceilings, stone walls, and stained glass. She met a new friend there named Rue. They usually hang out together after Sunday service.

Katniss doesn't make me go with her, but her smiles widen whenever I do. I'm not crazy about religion. Sometimes we get into debates. Sometimes we lose our patience with each other. Sometimes we get testy.

She'll walk away. I'll find and tickle her.

Or I'll walk away. She'll find me and brush her lips over my jaw.

And then I'll take her in my lap. And then we'll talk. We're learning, figuring it out, and growing together.

Katniss still likes planting things. She turned the bakery's roof into an urban farm. It looks crazy green, with mini fruit trees and planters full of herbs and vegetables.

In the summer, we spent a lot of time up there. Those evenings routinely ended with me draped across the lounge chair, completely at the mercy of her body, arching beneath her and hollering to the sky as she rode me.

The first morning after this happened, I'd left her a note on the fridge before I went down to the bakery. _I'm going to fuck you on the roof again tonight._

She likes my sexy notes. Unfortunately, Rye found it before Katniss did when he stopped by to drop off a record he'd borrowed. She hadn't been able to look him in the eyes for a week.

My brothers like her. She likes them. Rye has no clue how I won her over, which I guess is a compliment.

Finnick is a different story. He adores her, enjoys teasing her, even takes her to places he knows she'll appreciate. But in the beginning, it was awkward between him and me. I was more acutely aware of the hurt he concealed. It took him a while, but now he's hanging out with Annie a lot. He talks about her nonstop. I think it's going somewhere.

The sky shifts from grey to orange. Across the street, the smell of French roast wafts from a coffee house. Rye should be on his way to open the bakery by now.

Katniss's stomach grumbles against mine. "Hungry?" I ask.

"No," she lies, her voice muffled into my shoulder, hinting that she's got something on her mind.

"What's up?" I ask.

She raises her head. I tip mine back to stare up at her. We let our hands roam over each other. The desire to touch is constant.

"I did not see you coming, Peeta Mellark," she reflects.

My nose rubs against hers. "Well, you won't see me _going_ either."

"I love you."

"I love you more," I say. "I won't ever forget what you gave up for me."

"I would do it again."

Out of nowhere, I chuckle, and her brow furrows. "What?" she asks.

"It's just, I think you became more of a rebel than me."

Katniss grins. She likes this idea.

We leave the mural and head upstairs. I decide to take a shower to warm up from the cold. I'm craning my head backward into the stream when the glass door swings open, and there's stands Katniss, a ravenous expression on her face. She's wearing nothing but her bra and panties.

"Hey you." I watch her eyes travel up and down my body. "You look like you're getting ideas."

The last of her clothing falls to the floor. She steps inside, rests her back against my chest, and the contact of her bare form causes a riot inside me. Threads of hot water pelt our heads and trickle from my shoulders to hers, flowing over the olive skin and dripping off the peaks of her breasts. I want to catch those droplets with my tongue.

I've got ideas, too. She has no clue what she's gotten herself into sneaking into this tight, humid, soaked space with me.

"I used to think about doing this with you," she admits. "Back at the farm, whenever you used our shower."

"Did you like what you saw when you walked in on me?"

She tenses. I grin at the pink tint floating across her cheeks. My fingers wind into her hair and gently tug until I have full access to her neck, where I place soft bites over the pulse point.

"I liked it very much," she whispers.

"I'd hoped you would join me back then."

"You did no such thing."

"I got hard the minute I noticed you there." I feel goosebumps pop across her arms. "If you'd stepped inside, I would have made love to you right then. Do you want me to now?"

She elicits a long, suffering moan. I take that as a yes and walk her forward until her chest hits the tiles. Lifting her hands above her head, I press her palms into the smooth surface, then inch her hips back toward me. We've never tried this position before.

"Don't let go of the wall," I order.

When she nods, I nudge her thighs apart. My palms cup her breasts at same time my cock pitches forward, under her body, and then surges up into her. Katniss gasps, her fingers curling, her nails scraping the wall. Her narrow passage encases me and fogs my consciousness. I retreat and slide into her again, and again, and again. Our escalating moans ricochet off the tiles.

My palms leave her breasts to cover her flattened hands. As I lean into her, the wall gives me enough support to move harder, faster, my hips rolling in a circular motion. In mere seconds, we're both rocking against one another, my abs contracting, pleasure squeezing around my groin. My cries are getting more elevated.

"Not yet," she pants. "I need you closer. Please."

I need her closer, too. I need to see her face. Slipping from her, I flip Katniss around, trapping her once more to the wall. I hook her left leg around my waist, skate her right leg far out to the side, and ram into her again. The force sends her jostling upward. As I master a steady pumping rhythm, her fingers clasp my wet ass, urging me deeper.

"Oh, baby," I whimper.

My lips find the beauty mark on the side of her breast and latch onto it. I relish what our bodies are doing to each other. With a flick of my hips and and a taste of her tongue, and the water hitting us, I come so loudly that I'm practically levitating off the floor.

"Yes, Peeta," she says. "Let me hear you."

We both go still as the tidal wave slams into us, then we dissolve into listlessness. Our mouths connect, bridging our sighs together. We keep our eyes open as we kiss, maintaining eye contact. And I'm thankful for this enclosed space, and for our open eyes, and for the constant brush of the water. I'm thankful that we don't yet know what we'll do today, but that it's our choice.

We grin like idiots as we dry each other off. I slip on loose pants and go shirtless for the morning—Katniss enjoys seeing me this way—then head to the kitchen. At the counter, I slice a loaf of bread embedded with nuts.

When she's finished using the blow dryer, she emerges wearing one of my flannel shirts. She sets the table, padding around with her legs bare except for a pair of chunky socks. She's looks so cute like this.

As she gathers cups and spoons, her forehead pinches like it usually does whenever she starts thinking of the farm. Immediately, I know it's because of the mural.

She misses her family. Sometimes, I find her crying in the stairway to the bakery. Whenever this happens, I gather her to me and gently remind her of the promise she and her sister made before Katniss officially left the community.

Prim has rumspringa in a little over two years. The day after her sixteenth birthday, she'll just show up at our doorstep. She'll visit during the weekends.

The reminder always makes Katniss suck up the rest of her tears. She knows Prim and Mr. Everdeen have each other. She knows they love her. She knows they think of her.

Aware that she's suddenly getting melancholy, I stop what I'm doing and leave the kitchen. I head over to the record player she gave me for my eighteenth birthday, which Finnick helped her pick out. I flip through my records until I find The Lumineers. It's an album she's never heard.

A guitar strums through the living room. A tambourine follows.

"Katniss?" I call.

She pokes her head out of the kitchen, and I curl a finger at her. "Come here."

"But breakfast is—"

"Get over here, little rebel."

When she reaches me, I crush her to my chest and sweep her across the room. The beat picks up. I sway her from side-to-side, with an exaggerated flair, while lip-singing the song's chorus to her.

It works. Katniss's face breaks into a smile. She plays along, spinning and knocking her hips against mine.

We dance. We circle around each other. I twirl her under my arm and then pull her to me. I dip her back and kiss her. She laughs against my mouth.

It's easy making her laugh. It's easy loving her. And if that's all I ever have to do for the rest of my life, then I've got a pretty fun job ahead of me.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! It's been thirteen months since I finished this story, and I've missed it ever since. So here's an outtake (more like an epilogue to the epilogue) that was published back in the late summer for the Fandom4LLS charity. And for everyone who donated and already read this, I've extended this outtake to include some more Everlark love.
> 
> Thanks to Chelzie, Court81981, and Dustwriter for their beta-greatness and friendship. And to Ro Nordmann for the pretty new banner. Always!
> 
> Happy holidays, guys. I hope this makes you smile!

__

_Five Years Later_

_Bad Boy_

If I'm not careful, the spray can is going to squirt me in the fucking face. I'm crushing it in my fist, my finger anchored on the nozzle. All it would take is a break in my concentration, a moment of panic to make me to aim the can the wrong way. Just a few reflexive millimeters of pressure for the paint to spritz me blind. And then if the embarrassment doesn't kill me, the can's toxic ingredients will at least send me to the emergency room.

My pulse sky-rockets. I have to get it together before she wakes up or this will be a total failure. Standing in our room, I loosen my death-grip on the spray can. I step back as quietly as possible and scrutinize the wall across from our bed. The letters I've painted there look ridiculous. The words are all wrong. My fingers had shaken so bad that the handwriting looks like it belongs to a first-grader.

Who the hell do I think I am? I'm an artist, not a romantic. I can't even find a worthy way to ask her. The question is unoriginal, popped from the cork of every guy's mouth from here to Timbuktu. It's unworthy of my girl.

My mind wanders to Tall Gale and how he must have asked her. He probably did a better job than I will. His head is so much closer to Heaven, so I have no doubt he was able to pull the right sentimental speech from the clouds.

I roll my eyes. Whatever, dammit. She didn't choose Tall Gale. She chose me.

Her foggy sigh rises from beneath the covers. It's a red flag. She's a deep sleeper, but she always gets up around this time. I've gotta fix this quick. I run into the hallway, rip open the closet, pull out a spare sheet, and then ransack the apartment for pushpins. Returning to the room, I cover my epic stupidity of an idea with the sheet. I'll just tell her—

"Peeta?"

Fuck. Me.

I don't have to turn around to know that she's sitting up, holding the patchwork quilt she spent a year making to her chest. Her hair is falling over her shoulder, tangled and messy. She's blinking. In short, she's irresistible.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

I hang my head. "Nothing."

"That nothing smells like spray paint."

Oh. Yeah. That.

Of course, she's going to smell it right away. She probably sees it, too. For the first time, I notice the remnants of the fumes swimming in the beam of light from the window. We have a big room but not much furniture, so I didn't have to move shit out of the spray can's radius. The immediate space near the wall is mostly consumed by plants.

Is my lame romantic gesture killing the fucking plants?

"Um." I scratch my head. "What spray paint? I don't smell anyth—"

"Peeta Mellark. Look at me."

Dammit. She used to call me by my full name all the time when we were strangers. She only uses it now when she knows I'm bullshitting her.

Bracing my hands on my hips, I twist around. Naked Katniss shoulders. Hidden breasts. Bed hair. Narrowed eyes. Yup, I'm officially toast. And officially turned on. The feeling unravels the knots in my joints and pumps me full of a different kind of adrenaline. My girlfriend's hot all the time, but she's nostalgically hot when she flashes her former Amish scowl. Stern and strong-willed and skeptical.

Five years ago, I first met that scowl. It used to piss me off so much that I fantasized about her constantly. Her and her little apron, her long skirt and stockings. Clothes that were purer than any thought I'd had since puberty. Clothes that hid all the passion in her. Rip-able clothes.

My mood shifts from stupid to molten in 0.5 Katniss seconds. Other parts of me shift, too.

When I step toward her, she holds up her hand. "Do not come any closer. Answer me. What's going on?"

I ignore her and swagger across the floor while peeling off my t-shirt. "I was redecorating."

"Liar."

"You know it."

"Peeta Mellark doesn't redecorate a thing in this apartment."

Right again. Washing the dishes is as much redecorating as I ever do here. Katniss is the one who's brightened our apartment with color and framed my paintings. She's the one who sewed new curtains for the windows and bought flea-market pottery. She's the one who found a used shelf for my records and her books.

The only decoration I give a crap about is the sight of her bare ass prancing from the bathroom to the bedroom, giving me the green light to pounce. That's my kind of knickknack.

It's time to get sly. I crawl across the quilt, my eyes predatory on her as I knock a small pillow out of the way, making my intentions clear. Like a good girl, she gets my drift. She scoots away from me until her back hits the headboard, but her eyes burn a trail across my torso, her lips brightening with a pink hue that makes her look pure as ever, like that first night she stepped into my cabin at the Everdeen farm, intent on bringing me food, and I cornered her up against the wall just to see what it would do to her.

I hadn't expected the incident to blow my mind, but it had, being that close, smelling the woods and inexperience on her, seeing the girlish arousal she fought tooth and nail to hide. The words I spray-painted on the wall are making me nostalgic for those days. All the ways I pushed her demure buttons, collapsing that barricade of righteousness and bringing out the hot curiosity in her. Like then, I want to catch her off guard and spread her blush everywhere like a watercolor. The very thought of it gets me worked up.

I nuzzle her neck. "I was working on an intervention piece."

"Another lie," she says.

"Who cares?"

"You're hiding something."

"So are you," I say and pull the quilt from her body, exposing her breasts.

The mattress squeaks. It always does. The more it squeaks, the more I know I've got her right where I want her. The chain around my neck falls forward, and her fingers catch it, pulling me down. Hanging from the chain is something else I'd planned to give her this morning, even though she's seen it a thousand times, but I steer us in a different direction. I hover over her and kiss her plush mouth while she cradles the chain's keepsake in her palm.

The tip of my tongue juts out to trace her lips, and they tremble in response, which does me in fast. Hungrily, I fit my lips to hers, my tongue gliding over her teeth briefly before descending into the hollow of her mouth. I kiss and kiss and kiss her. Ensconced between those warm thighs, I glide my hand down, swipe aside her panties and cup her, humming in appreciation at the way her breath stalls.

Her legs fall open even while she rasps, "Peeta...I demand...that you...I..." As my fingers methodically trace every part of her, she bows off the mattress. "I'm...warning you...I will not..."

"You _will_ ," I insist.

"Peeta, tell...tell me this instant..."

"Tell you what I'm going to do with _this_?" I tease, gyrating the heel of my hand against her.

She growls in frustration. "That is _not_ what I—"

"Let me break it down for you, step by step," I murmur. "First, my thumb is going to brush that sweet fleshy pebble of yours, lightly, again and again. Then once you're sobbing from it, I'm going to add pressure and massage it in small, slow circles, getting it nice and glistening and aching for more. I'll keep you constantly on the edge of an orgasm and pitching into the headboard because you, stubborn girl, can't stay still."

I chuckle when she clenches her teeth and wiggles her hips, attempting to restrain herself. I go in for the kill. "So that by the time my finger slides into you, all I'll have to do is keep it there, stiff and pressed up against that spot near your spine. I won't have to move at all, 'cause just the feel of my finger, immobile and filling you will make you convulse until you pass out."

And then I'm going to fix the wall. And then I'll find a better way to ask her.

Katniss slumps into the bed. After a few more attempts, she gives up fighting. I start to do what I said while fastening my mouth to her neck, certain that I've won.

Until, with a cry of regret, her palms shove against my chest. I roll over and topple onto the floor. I land with a heavy thud and jerk upright just as her legs sprint past me. Shit! Sneaky little minx!

I stumble to my feet. "Katniss, stop—"

She yanks on the sheet. The pins jet to the other side of the room. And she freezes. She stares. "Oh..."

The most uninspiring question known to man stains the green-painted wall in black letters.

_Will you marry me?_

Jesus. I don't even have a sweet anecdote ready to make up for this, nothing that ends with, "And that's when I knew I wanted you. Always." I don't have anything like that prepared because I don't prepare, not even for this. Because I'm a seismic asshole.

My palms begin to sweat again as I imagine the wildflowers Tall Gale probably picked for her. The crisp shirt and pastoral smirk he must have worn. His hokey Amish suspenders. His polished buggy, the wheels scrubbed free of dirt.

I alternate between wiping my hands on my jeans and tearing them through my hair. Katniss doesn't speak. She stands there wearing nothing but her white cotton panties—I love her in those—and gapes at the words. She twitches, hands rising halfway to her naked chest. She shuffles to the bed and grabs a throw blanket, wrapping it around herself. I almost smile. Even when she's in shock, she manages to "dignify" herself.

She points at the mess on the wall. Her finger trembles like my whole heart. "What sort of art intervention is this?" she asks.

"The personal kind?" I suggest.

"I see," she says, tipping her head to look at me.

My feet find a way to function. They carry me to her. My shadow touches hers on the floor.

I may as well get it over with. I take the hand that isn't grasping a blanket to her body and discover her fingers are as moist as my own. I swallow the bowling ball in my throat. Okay, maybe I do have one anecdote to save the day. "Remember when you got drunk—"

She rolls her eyes. She hates when I bring up that night. It was the only time she ever got wasted. It happened last year, on Prim's nineteenth birthday. Katniss was missing her sister like crazy. Prim had spent her rumspringa visiting us in the city regularly over two years, but when it came time to choose, she decided to commit to the Amish church instead of moving in with us. Prim. Of all people.

It was a hard choice for her, but as much as she loved modern life, she learned to love her heritage more. She agonized over telling Katniss. I will never forget the masterful way Katniss hid her disappointment and spoke words of encouragement to her sister.

Katniss let go of that life, but the pain never goes away. So the night Prim turned nineteen, Katniss was depressed. I wasn't there. I was stuck driving one-hundred and forty miles, each way, to deliver a wedding cake, when it should have been Rye's responsibility, since he's the one who screwed up the order. But Rye had to go to class and Sam was traveling, so I had to do the dirty work. And on the way back into the city, I hit massive traffic. Of all nights.

Finnick and Annie kept Katniss company. They gave her a drink. And then another. One sappy pop-folk record later, Katniss was slurring about harvest season and fireflies. It turns out, she's a sentimental drunk, a trait she associates with weakness. So yeah, she hates this story. But there's something she was too blubbery to realize back then. It's all I've got.

My thumbs graze her knuckles. We study our bare feet.

"You felt so guilty for being miserable," I say. "All worried that if I came home and saw you wasted, I would translate it as a Katniss-doesn't-want-to-be-here-with-me-miserable. So you did something to make up for it? Do you remember?"

Katniss looks away. I take her chin and swing her face toward mine. "You baked me pumpernickel bread."

I once told her that nothing felt more like home than my father's pumpernickel. Katniss tried to follow his old recipe. She can cook, but _drunk_ does not go with _cook_...or _bake_. I would have thrown a fucking fit at her for using the oven while plastered if our sober friends hadn't been there to help. But Finnick and Annie know jack about baking.

The next day, still ripe from her hangover, Katniss set the loaf on the table. The bread tasted like chalk. I pretended to smile and _Mmmmm_.

She burst into tears. She's the one person I suck at lying to.

"That was awful," she recalls.

"No, it was great," I tell her. "The bread tasted a lot better after I put it back in the oven and burned it. Never has there been a recorded moment in history when burned bread tasted better than fresh bread. And what did you say when we ate that crazy toast?"

"I asked you for a tissue."

"After that. After the nose-blowing."

"I said that you gave me hope."

"That things can be better. No matter how messed up you think they've turned out." I cradle her face. "I know the bread was supposed to be some sort of apology for missing the life you gave up, but that's one apology I'll never need from you. There you were, trying to make me feel better on the day that _you_ were hurting. The least I could do was give you hope in return."

This close to her, I smell autumn and sleep. "I didn't come to any big realization that day. Or this morning. All I know is, if this is how we try to take care of each other, we're doing okay. And I don't want to stop doing okay with you. I want to get even better at _okay_. Okay?"

A small sound comes out of her. A squeak or something. I'm not sure.

"So I was thinking that if you marry me, we could make _okay_ an official thing. We'll have full access to it."

"Peeta..."

"I'll never leave you. This home, here with me, it's real. It's yours. If you're going to miss where you came from, I want you to know why you're missing it. I want you to feel right about what you chose."

It happens. The gears shift into warp speed, her expression hardening into a rock. "This always felt right, Peeta."

Uh-oh. She's frowning. I'm babbling. I should have cut the mic on myself during one of the _okays_.

"This'll feel more right," I emphasize. "You won't have to doubt."

She steps back. "I never have before."

I step forward. I don't like the look she's giving me. It's the look of imminent retreat. What did I do now?

Another step back. Another step forward.

Me: "Say yes."

Her: "I won't, Peeta Mellark."

She marches out of the room. Her answer strikes me between the eyes. Then in my gut. Then in the nuts. Then in the worst spot, the spot I felt on one fall morning, years ago, when we had to say goodbye on her farm. I didn't know that feeling could come back to haunt me. Not until _I won't, Peeta Mellark_. A hit and run.

Last time she rejected me, after I begged her to come to the city, I was devastated. I'm devastated now for all of an instant. I'm broken.

I'm pissed. I stalk down the hall, down the stairs, and find her in the bakery. The shop is closed, the shades drawn because it's a local holiday. Katniss usually comes down here to stuff her face after giving me a moral earful. She's making a beeline for the stockroom, where we store plastic containers full of leftover cheese buns and supersized pretzels.

I grab the blanket-dress and yank on it, forcing her to face me. "What the hell? That can't be your answer."

"I will not say yes to your guilt," she argues.

"My what?"

"You do not owe me this! You don't have to marry me to convince yourself that I'm yours, or to thank me!"

"Katniss."

"You told me what you wanted to do for me. Not _why_ you wanted me. No, it's all about repaying me!" Her voice catches. "I made my choice. I'm happy. When are you going to believe that?"

Fuck. She's right. She's so right.

I slide my arms around her. She's stiff, but we stay like that for a long time, until both of us deflate into each other. It's not like baking me that pumpernickel bread hadn't been justified. Because sometimes I am afraid that she regrets her choice. My dad died six years ago. He left me without warning. So I've never stopped expecting people to slip through my fingers.

There are times when I get brutally paranoid about whether our home can replace the roots Katniss left behind. Especially when it comes to things that unsettle her, little details and big ones. City noise, car alarms, sirens, and neighbors hollering at each other at 2 am. Zoos, because she says they're cruel and unnatural. Her every move being monitored in cyber space and by public cameras, which are a far freaking cry from the private lives of the Amish. Hell, anyone can criticize these things, not just an Amish person, but like an irrational idiot, I took it personally when she wrinkled her nose at them.

I've had to mollify her a few times when she came across modern impressions of her culture. A reality TV show. A little girl who showed up at our door for Halloween dressed as Katniss's former self, kapp and all. But when she stumbled across Weird Al's cover, "Amish Paradise,"on YouTube—I have no freaking clue how she got there, but anyway, the title misled her—forget it. Her pacifist nature went out the window, and for a second I was kinda afraid our iPad would follow.

That's not what bothers her the most, though. It's homelessness. Commuters tend to bypass beggars, pretending not to see them, not really giving a shit. To Katniss, who comes from a place where everyone helps one another, she finds this "inexcusable" and hasn't ignored a beggar once since moving in with me. One day, she came home battling tears after being stopped for money by a needy mother and her children.

"It's like being shunned. It's worse than that," Katniss had whimpered, curling into my arms on the couch.

She even brought a homeless woman to our place on Christmas Eve, cleaned her up, made her dinner, and sent her off with the rosemary loaf I'd baked. I didn't think it was possible, but I fell for Katniss even more that day.

And when I'm able to curb my paranoia, I remind myself that she isn't the type to wither from the crap side of this world. Her culture isn't perfect either. Besides, this is reality, plenty people live with it, and she's the strongest person I know. She can take it.

And there're enough things she likes about living in a metropolis, like movie theaters and subways and libraries. Caramel-mocha-whatever-the-fuck-it's-called hot chocolate. Cathedrals and her quilting club. Ice-skating rinks. (I fell on my ass twice that day while she and Annie cracked up.)

She also loves music. The other day, I walked in on her shaking her girly boxers to an old Springsteen tune. I'd been outside working on my bike, and when I saw her, my jaw hit the floor. Things got really interesting when "I'm on Fire" came on the record player, and she began to sing along and sway her body in a way that made me drop the wrench I'd been holding. Needless to say, seconds later she ended up with my greasy fingerprints all over her thighs.

Even though she still handwrites notes for everything, including inviting my brothers or Finnick over—it's more thoughtful and lasts longer, she says—she does like phones now that she knows how to use them.

Her second weekend with me during her rumspringa, my phone had rung in the living room, and I caught her staring at it in embarrassment and slight panic, not knowing what to do. The sight melted my heart. I gave her a crash course on landlines and my cell, and then I got an idea. I'd acted like I needed to grab something from the bakery, but instead I snuck outside. Leaning against a wall across the street, one hand thrust into my pocket and one foot propped up on he brick facade, I watched the light in our apartment and dialed our number. Her voice came out uncertain when she answered.

"Hello? Um, good evening. This is the...Mellark residence. How can I help you?"

My lips slanted into a grin. "So formal," I mused. "It's your home, too, you know."

She gasped. "Peeta? Where—"

"Get in bed," I instructed in a husky tone.

She complied, clinging to the receiver as I introduced her to more creative, vocal ways to enjoy phones that night.

And she loves our apartment, where she cooks with me and we talk for hours out on the fire escape. And this bakery, with its surplus of cheese buns and the flour fights we get into with my brothers.

And me. For some spectacular and crazy reason, she loves me. Even after five years, I could pinch myself.

Gazing down at her now, at the earnest gray of her eyes and the creases of longing between her brows, I'm stunned that I ever had an iota of doubt. She loves being here as much as I loved being at her farm. Neither place can ever be pried from our minds, but they shouldn't be. They're who we are. They brought us together. They won't split us apart. It would take a hell of a lot more than that.

I do believe what I said earlier, how things can be better even when they look bleak. I can make this moment better. I once promised myself that making her happy would always be my job—that and accepting it when she says she _is_ happy. I need to trust that. I need to show her I trust that.

I've been quiet too long, so I speak into her hair. "Does this mean you hate the spray paint?"

She exhales on my skin. "It was wonderful."

That's what I need to move forward. There's still time. There's still a _yes_ dancing inside her, waiting to be coaxed from her mouth. And I can't wait to earn it. I do love a challenge.

I rub my nose against hers. "Let's go for a ride."

kpkpkpkpkp

_Good Girl_

I'm calm I'm as calm as a sunset. My emotions have settled since he pressed my body against his. Returning alone to our room to get ready after eating a large breakfast of my favorite chocolate chip waffles—oh, he's certainly doing his best to woo me—I blush at the words on the wall. Yes. That is what I wanted to say the moment I saw his sloppy Peeta handwriting. I fell in love with the question. I fell so deep that I'm still trying to climb my way to the surface.

When he first stole my heart...when was that? It could have been when he drew my picture as a truce between us, or when he asked me to dance in his cabin, or when he gathered wheat with me in the fields, or when he swept me into the windstorm of his motorcycle, or when he told me I had choices, or when I heard him upstairs in my family's shower and I envisioned forbidden things. Or when those forbidden things became real. When we rode to the top of a hill and he lowered me onto a blanket.

Yes is what I wanted to tell him, but then his speech took a downturn. It sounded too much like the reasons I almost married Gale. Unreal reasons. Reasonable reasons. I wasn't ready for marriage when I accepted Gale's proposal. I wasn't ready when I met Peeta, the foul-mouthed and deviant boy from the city, who invaded my compact world. I wasn't ready during rumspringa. I wasn't even ready when I chose Peeta over my Amish life.

I'm ready now. But Peeta Mellark still thinks he's second best to what I gave up. Have I not loved him enough? If I haven't proven just how much he means to me by now, how will I do it as a wife?

Combing through the closet, I choose a long, flowy skirt and a snug, worn t-shirt. I strap on a pair of boots and a fitted jacket that Peeta said was "rock and roll" when I bought it.

He is waiting outside, leaning against his motorcycle and swinging a set of keys around his finger, when I meet him on the sidewalk. My wardrobe choice is not lost on him. His eyes rake over the clothes. I know that look.

He pulls me close and speaks against my lips. "I can't decide if it's the city girl or farm girl in this outfit that drives me wild."

"You're a rogue," I declare.

"Take a compliment, baby."

"From you? I'll always take one."

"Good. Take it and put it somewhere nice and soft."

"You cannot seduce me into saying yes."

He squints. "What makes you think I'm going to do that?"

Because he's done it before, used his words and body to corrupt my resolve. I nearly lost the battle this morning, with his fingers and honeyed words threatening to detour me. I will not let him this time. Not about this.

I give him a look of my own, and he laughs. "Careful," he warns. "I just might try it. I just might convince you."

"Convince me, then. Only use a different method."

"Get on the bike before I throw you over my shoulder."

I secure my helmet and settle myself on the seat, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind and feeling him flex beneath his shirt. I relish holding him like this while we fly through the streets, too fast for anyone to catch us. Removed from everything. Riding the wind.

I assume we're going to the place we always do, a meadow surrounded by forest. It's close to a public farm, my second job outside of the archery range where I teach urbanites to hit a bull's-eye. Peeta calls me the Mozart of archery. I picked up my instrument, without any training, and after a few attempts, I knew what to do, how to claim my target. It happened one day, out of nowhere. I cannot explain how this was possible.

But rather than riding out to that meadow, Peeta rattles me by taking a different route without asking if I'll allow it. It's a route that I recognize, despite it being years. Each maple tree and curve in the road is the same. We pass well-tended barns, covered horse buggies that I duck from although I'm wearing a helmet and no one can see my face...and finally knolls of gold and green. Cornstalks and wheat fields. Their scent is so distinct, rich and familiar as my own reflection, permeating my memory. A thousand vivid moments pass through me, winding around my heart.

When I see my childhood home, my father's farm, my arms tighten around Peeta for support. He covers my hands and squeezes them. We've flown back in time. The house, the porch, the garden in front, the tractors parked close to the hay bales, the stacks of firewood, the trees in the backdrop. Nothing has changed.

I'm shocked and terrified and sad and elated. And furious.

We speed past the property and pull into that secret spot within a curtain of shrubbery, where Peeta used to conceal his motorcycle. I hop from the bike and tear off my helmet before he has a chance to explain himself.

"Did you bring me here to test me?" I accuse, my voice acidic and my words too impulsive for my own good.

Peeta whips off his own helmet, revealing his blond, windswept hair. "Test you?"

"Well, there's no other reason to be here."

"Come on, Katniss." He patiently sets the helmet on one of the handlebars. "That sounds like something an asshole would do. Not a guy who loves every last inch of you."

"My father could have heard the engine roaring!"

"He'd be more likely to hear you having a post-Amish fit."

I huff, but my voice cracks with longing and confusion. "They could catch us here—"

"It's harvest time. They're in the fields," he points out, then climbs off the bike and extends his hand. "Just come on. A few minutes trespassing on your old stomping ground won't send you to the slammer. And if the cows catch us, we'll bribe them."

"Peeta."

"Or I can sweet talk our way out of it. I speak Moo, you know."

I try not to laugh and instead point at him. "Don't make fun. While we're here, there will be no cow jokes, no naughty quotes about plowing the field, no Tall Gale impressions—"

"Katniss," he sighs. "You know me better than that. I was trying to lighten your mood and relax you."

I sag. "I know."

He takes my fingers and laces them with his. My chest flares with nerves, and I keep touching the beauty mark behind my ear and swallowing apple-sized lumps down my throat. But at the same time, the nearer we get to the cabin, the longer I hold Peeta's hand, the more I calm down. The more sure my footsteps become.

The cabin is the same too. The log walls and white curtains in the window, the chimney poking from the roof. As we sneak inside, it smells of pine and burnt wood, as though someone spends frequent time here, perhaps waiting for a special visit. A secret one. The possibility lifts my spirits.

That could be why not one stitch of furniture has been moved or replaced. The fire stove, the rocker, the wool blanket and faded quilt. They're all here. As is Peeta's mural painting on the wall. I trace the lines of color that map out our hill. It's overwhelming, how much I remember in spite of all that has changed, how much we've grown together.

His arms wind around me from behind, his words warm in my ear. "I brought you here to remind you that I lived here, too. This is where we started. Where we met and kissed. You _should_ miss it. I do, too."

"Being with you is all I want," I whisper. "I go where you go."

"Same here," he says softly. "Do you want to leave them a message?"

Prim is nineteen now. She must have a beau. Perhaps she's engaged.

Maybe Papa has more gray hairs in his beard, but the lines in his face have multiplied from smiling. Maybe it's been a good harvest this season.

I nod gratefully. Peeta has come prepared, pulling a brush and three small tubes of paint from the inside pocket of his jacket. We paint little pictures around the image of our hill. A glass jar with a lightning bug inside for Prim, to remind her of the evening when she and I danced through the fields. An arrow for Papa, because he gave me his blessing to embrace my passion. And a sunset, to let them both know we're okay.

"You think they'll find this?" I ask.

"I do. I bet we can come here sometimes," Peeta says. "Break the law once a year and paint more stuff."

To communicate with my family. And perhaps they will communicate back. I would like that.

I'm also ready to leave. With him. Always him.

I hope he knows that. I hope so much. But as much as this visit has affirmed that he does, I cannot help fretting. Perhaps I'm simply stubborn, but I need more convincing before I answer his proposal.

We leave the cabin and the farm behind until next year, when we'll have more messages to paint, more to say. As I sensed he would, Peeta takes me to our hill. The place where we shared another significant first. We spread out a blanket. I curl into him and stare up at the branches of a tree swathed in gold and red leaves, but within seconds, he rolls on top of me, tucking himself between my thighs and filling my mind with his familiar scent—wood chips, leather, and sweet spices. His chest drags across my breasts, provoking a fire in my fingers and toes.

He kisses me, the tilt of his head, the thrust of his tongue, and the taste of his eager mouth causing me to arch my back. I like kissing him. I have the stamina to do it non-stop for an incalculable amount of time. Just kissing.

Peeta has other ideas. His palms sneak beneath the tail of my shirt, en route to my bra. So many reactions spiral together. The sudden presence of a pulse. My knees rising. And heat. Everywhere heat. Any more of this, and he'll have me writhing and sputtering and agreeing to whatever he asks of me. It's difficult, but I manage to twist away.

He doesn't care. His lips prowl across my neck, and I die very loudly. He knows too much about my skin.

"Convinced?" he murmurs.

"No," I moan.

"I'll make you say yes."

"You will not."

He groans and tumbles onto his back, leaving me cold. I know he loves me—that is not the point. Our trip to the cabin should have settled it for me, but I want to be absolutely certain the question is coming from a secure place inside him.

I feel him debating something. He nods to himself and pulls out a sketch pad. I understand. We pause to come up for air. I've forgotten my bow, so I take a walk down the hill, where there's a small woodland. I lose myself in memories, my first sight of Peeta in his aviators. My rigid brows reflected in his lenses. And when I return, I find him waiting.

No. Not just waiting. Kneeling.

He holds up the sketch pad. Drawn on the page is a rough impression of my old Amish kapp. The one the he plucked from my head that first night, bent on antagonizing me. The ties are double-knotted. I press my fist against my mouth to hide my smile.

He flips to the next page. Another rough but lovely sketch, the pen strokes quick and graceful, made by a practiced swipe of the hand. The profile of a girl bending over and picking wheat from a field.

The next page, a poetry book purchased during one of our rides away from the farm. The next, a thunderstorm splitting a tree branch. Our night together in the cabin. The next, a girl standing at a window in her nightgown and holding a glass of water. I must have been gone a while because the sketches keep coming. The church I go to in the city. The urban garden that I planted on our roof. Two dancing bodies.

"This is you," Peeta says. "This is what I want."

He sets the pad down, stands, and removes his chain from around his neck. Hanging from it is a ring that belonged to his father. It wasn't until a year after I came to live with him that Peeta was ready to wear it. Since then, he has never taken it off.

"I didn't tell you the whole story," he admits. "What you don't know is that my father bought this ring for someone he loved when he was young. She was his for a while. He said she was the one. It didn't work, but he kept the ring to remember her, and then he gave it to me. Said that I should save it for the girl who inspires me."

He slips the ring on my finger. With the chain attached, the ring is a bit tight, but it will fit nicely on its own. He uses the chain to tug me against him, then clasps the back of my thighs and hoists me off the ground. I gasp, my legs circling his waist.

"You're the one, Katniss. You say what you mean. You never lie. You're passionate about your choices. You know what matters to you, and you hold onto it like no one else I've ever known. You don't love someone lightly, and I'm honored that you saw something in me worth giving your heart to. How could I ever doubt that? Every single thing you do inspires me. I want to marry you because you're my sweetheart. That's all." He swallows. "Do you feel like saying yes yet?"

Tears have gathered beneath my lashes. I long to shout my answer. "If this happens, I want to do it—"

"Wherever you want. I'll marry you in a church. I'll marry you on a tractor. I'll marry you in a fucking chicken coop—"

I rest my pinky against his mouth. "Don't curse."

He bites that pinky. "You like it when I curse."

"I was going to say that it should happen here."

"Brace yourself, sweetheart. More than vows are going to happen on this hill. I'm going to keep you up all night. Just say the word. I'm dying."

I think of my sister and father, absent from all of this. The ache is definite, but at least we can tell them about it. We can paint them a sign in the cabin.

I frame Peeta's face and shrug. "Sure. Why not?"

We stare in shock, and then we laugh, alternating between that and kissing as he twirls me around. He breaks away, his voice thick, his words rushed. "I need to get you home so I can rip into you."

The request drizzles down my spine. "Okay."

Peeta sets me down. He detaches the chain from the ring while it's still on my finger—yes, it fits perfectly now. He slips the chain back over his head, then quickly gathers our stuff and packs up the bike. I stare at him. Orange light warms his dark clothes, his blond curls graze the back of his shirt, and his profile is happy.

There's more. His jeans. They stretch over his thighs as he starts the engine, the hard seat vibrating between his thighs.

Nature changes my mind. As he looks away to collect our helmets, I lift my skirt and yank my knickers down my legs, kicking them to the side. I march toward him.

He glances up as I reach the motorcycle. He holds out my helmet. "Here—"

I knock it out of his hand. It hits the ground and rolls across the grass. I climb onto the bike, straddle his waist, and kiss him.

Peeta can always be counted on to react swiftly. Growling from the back of his throat, he kisses me back, opening his mouth and flicking his tongue between my lips while his free hand dives into my hair, properly ruining what was left of my braid.

My hips grind into him. I make my own request. "Rip into me now."

Now. Here. Right here.

Peeta makes a harsh noise and tosses his own helmet over his shoulder. "I won't stop once I've started," he warns silkily.

I nod. My hands scrap into his hair, my lips pulling at his, knobs of pleasure winding through me. We disregard pacing. The breeze could be responsible, the way it teases the hem of my skirt, inviting Peeta to bunch it in his fist and slide it up my limbs. Or it could be the ring. Or it doesn't matter. It becomes too much, the friction, the wanting. We're going to be in tatters by the time this is over.

His hands slip beneath the skirt, and he curses when he discovers what I've removed. He wants to trace the wetness, but that's not enough. I unzip his jeans, loosening them from around his waist. He hasn't said anything, and he's letting me have control, both of which are unusual for him.

I like it. I like making him speechless. I want to exhaust him with speechlessness.

Peeta raises himself off the seat, enough for me to inch down the waistband, exposing his skin and the green ink embedded there, a tattoo of my name. He is ready for me. Everything important has been freed. We don't bother with the rest of our clothes. They stay on, rustling, wrinkling. His chest hitches as he admires the way my skirt tangles around my hips.

Cupping my backside, Peeta guides me up and over him, and I sink onto his lap, filling myself with his body. He watches me with that wicked gaze. _Don't break eye contact with me._

When he has my full attention, he wets his lips and takes over. Clasping my rear, he rocks me back and forth, and I'm lost to another world. Our mouths graze, our breaths tighten into quick little lashes that we can hear over the bike's constant roar. The vibrations change the depth and flow of our movements. It's a strong sensation. Solid and hard and raving like a mad thing, bringing out the wild in us.

I'm nearly there when he utters, "More."

Urging me backward, he lays me flush against the seat and looms over my body. Still upright, he holds my thighs apart and keeps going, his hips bobbing between them, hitting me from a more direct angle. He slides in and out fully, the head of his arousal spreading and tormenting me with each measured pass. My legs swing up and ride his waist, the heels of my boots snagging on his belt.

And yet, he demands, "More."

And oh, there is only one Peeta, and he's mine. Selfish girl that I am, I am no longer good. I have stolen him from everyone else. I take and take and take. I give, too. I hear myself giving it to Peeta. Soon enough, I'm thrashing and whining, unable to continue, but he doesn't accept that.

"Give me more, baby," he pants.

He falls forward, his weight on me, and quickens his thrusts. My limbs give out and fall limply to the sides. With every rounded thump of his pelvis, his hands squeeze and twist the handlebars. Each time he does that, the engine revs.

The pleasure tapers to a point. Now...yes...now. All of a sudden, he slides in and pauses right at that very point. He goes absolutely still and stares down at me, his eyes a bright, hard blue. The pressure, the shape and size of him propped against that special spot in me, heightens everything. My body seizes up and then explodes. I grip his shoulder, arching off the bike, pitching myself into his chest and crying out.

"Long and slow," he encourages. "That's it, Katniss. Keep coming. That's it."

It lasts and lasts. His lids flutter, his mouth falls open, and he joins me with a pained shout. We seal ourselves to each other and unravel, our moans overlapping and racing across the landscape.

When we resurface, we cling to each other, grappling for breath. That was...that was...ohh.

Head resting on my shoulder, his raises his arm weakly and turns off the engine, mumbling something against my skin that sounds like _holy shit_. I laugh.

He lifts his head and smiles. "You're going to be a cute wife."

"I love you, too," I say.

I'm still in awe that it can feel this way, that once—not too long ago—I nearly choose a placid relationship over this one. Being with Peeta was once a risk, but it's the best one I ever took. Choosing him meant choosing hope.

We're fickle and impulsively reluctant to leave now. It's oddly warm today, and there really is no other place to be, and I don't want to let go of this moment yet. We unroll the blanket once more, fading into a midday rest.

By the time we wake, it's late afternoon. The sun is already setting. I enjoy autumn's early hour dusk, but I'm probably the only one in the world who does. Well...except for Peeta.

We feast on the bread and goat cheese that he packed, grinning at one another in between bites. And then we make love again, this time on the grass, naked with our limbs entwined, each of us attempting to dominate the other with our weight and fluid thrusts. My muscles tighten, gathering at the center where our bodies meet. The blanket cloaks us in a bundle of movement and anxious noises. Sweat beads on our foreheads.

As I quiver beneath him, above him, and beneath him again, my mind rekindles the memory of our first time, when his calculated, deep, forbidden rhythm spread me wide. When the vault of his body dangled me over a precipice. That morning, when I changed forever, to the tireless sounds of our bliss. Just me and my rebel boy.

Afterward, Peeta raises himself on his elbow and holds up my knickers. "Mind if I keep these?"

I grin, my fingers roaming over the dandelion tattoo on his back. "We live in the same apartment. It's not as though you're stealing them away."

"Yeah, it is. I'll hide them. My secret. The panties you wore when you said yes."

"Only if I get to keep the ring."

He kisses my lips gently. "Always, Amish girl."

"Always," I agree.

"Hold on." He stands, bringing me with him. "I know how this ends. Come here."

Peeta reaches for my hips and sways with me under the darkening sky, open and boundless and everywhere. I realize now what I'd already known back on the farm. It's not about wanting one home over the other. It's about wanting each other. In our own way, we've been doing that from the beginning. He and I are made to exist between worlds, like on this hill, and to thrive here. Someday, I'd like us to build a house on this spot. And I already know what directions the windows will face.

As the sun sets on us, he begins to murmur a lazy version of our song, and I grin against his shoulder. I wouldn't mind if it ended like this every time, with him singing that he belongs with me, and I belong with him.

It's enough. I'm convinced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at: andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com. Come say hi!


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